To Touch the Other Side
by Linebreaker
Summary: One year after the events of DOTM, things are looking up for the Autobots: Decepticons are on the run and old friends are arriving on Earth. Too bad a strange transformer has just revealed himself, bringing with him knowledge of an ancient threat to Autobots, Decepticons, and humankind alike . . . and hope of renewed life. OP/IH, other pairings, OCs
1. Every Time I Try to Go It Alone

_New story coming down the pike. I've been working on this epic thing since I first watched DOTM in the theatre and I think it's about time I started posting it. Obviously, that means that it has DOTM spoilers. It also contains several OCs. That being said, please give it a chance and I appreciate any constructive criticism. :)_

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**Chapter 1: Every Time I Try to Go It Alone**

"Are you sure you don't want to come with me?"

The security checkpoint at the Washington Dulles International Airport is loud and crowded with holiday travelers, everyone shuffling and mutinous, trying to get their luggage checked and make it to their gates on time. Sam Witwicky and Carly Spencer are standing back from the lines, trying to get in some last-minute time together before Carly has to depart.

Sam wraps his arms around Carly's waist, dragging her in close to plant a grinning kiss to her lips. "You know I _want_ to, babe," he says once he pulls away. "I love your family and England is beautiful this time of year, y'know, despite the sub-zero temperatures and—"

"I can't believe you're going to miss Christmas with me," Carly interrupts what is sure to turn into a mini-diatribe, "just to hang out here with the Autobots."

"It's not just hanging out. Not just hanging out—if it were hanging out, I'd tell 'em, 'Look guys, you're gonna have to put up your own robo-tree this year. I'm going to England with my gorgeous, brilliant, wonderful girlfriend and spending time romancing her.' And they'd just have to deal."

"Robo-tree?"

Sam smirks. "Yeah, you should see what 'Bee can do with corrugated pipe, some copper tubing, and an old chain-link fence. Pretty amazing stuff." He huffs a short laugh at the memory of the last Christmas he'd spent with the yellow Camaro before growing more solemn. "But you know it isn't just me being social. I am—" He puffs out his chest with satisfaction. "—Public Relations Liaison to the Autobots. It's a very important job."

"It is important and I'm very proud of you, but is it so important that you can't spend Christmas with your girlfriend, let alone your own family?" Carly's question is soft and serious. "Does your mother know that you're going to be using the Christmas holidays to hang out—"

"It's _not_ hanging out."

"—with your alien robot friends instead of going home to spend time with her and your dad?"

"I may have neglected to mention that."

Carly sighs explosively and leans back. "Sam Witwicky, you are—"

"It's just that we have some very big things coming down the pike right now; things that I want everyone prepared for and for that I really don't get holidays. But I promise, I _promise_," he says, pulling her back in close and speaking softly into the curve of her throat, "once all of this is over, I am going to take a leave of absence for, like, a month and I'm going to spend the whole time with you on a beach somewhere where the sun never sets. You won't be able to peel me away from you. Sound good?"

Carly makes an exasperated sound but wraps her arms around his neck. Sam takes a moment to enjoy the warmth of her breasts and belly pressed up against him, the scent of her floral perfume, and the soft weight of her hair against his face. It creates a bubble of peace around the two of them in the middle of the rushing travelers.

Eventually she pulls back just far enough to look Sam in the eye, reaching up and framing his face with her hands. "Two month leave of absence," she whispers. She waits for Sam to smile and nod before he gets pulled in for another lingering kiss. When someone nearby wolf-whistles at them Carly neatly steps back and stoops to pick up her carry-on luggage, finally stepping into line. "I love you, even if you are an idiot."

"I love you, too." He moves up next to her, reaching out to grasp her hand and pull it up to kiss her warm palm. "Tell your family I said hello and Merry Christmas and that I'm sorry I missed seeing them this time."

"I will."

They remain silent as they make their way up towards the officers who are barking orders and scanning over people's belongings. Sam holds her steady as she reaches down to preemptively remove her shoes. "Be careful," he says gently. "And call me when you land, no matter what time it is over here."

"I will." She gives his hand a squeeze before withdrawing her own and leans in for one last kiss just as one of the officers ushers her forward. "Goodbye Sam. You have a Merry Christmas, yeah?"

"You, too. I'll have your present waiting for you whenever you get back."

Carly lets loose a tinkling laugh as she straightens and turns away. "It had better be very impressive to make up for spending your Christmas locked up at a government facility with your car over spending it with me."

"Oh, you don't even know!" Sam calls to her as she dumps her bag, shoes, and assortment of jewelry into the plastic tub waiting on the conveyor belt.

Sam watches from the sidelines as she steps through the metal/energon detector and collects her belongings on the other side. Once she's slid back into her heels, she straightens up and calls, "Bye, Sam! Love you!"

"Love you, too! I'll see you in a couple of weeks!"

She waves one last time and then she is gone.

Sam stands there, watching the place where she disappeared for a short amount of time before he glances down at his watch and decides that it's best he get going. He has a meeting with Mearing at 4:30 (one that's sure to be horrendous if the others he's been to so far this month are anything to judge by); Ratchet has been trying to get him down to the MedBay for a week now, so he may as well do that while he's at headquarters; and he's cleared out his evening schedule to spend time with Bumblebee, who's waiting out in the hourly parking lot right now.

Sam sighs and begins making his way towards the exit. _Best get started, otherwise the day is never gonna end._

He rolls his neck back and forth to ease some of the tension. Stressful as it is, he'll never complain to anyone about this job because it's what he's wanted since he got out of college: he's doing something where he matters and makes a difference, and he's doing it with and for the Autobots. He has human friends and he loves Carly more than anything, but even amongst them he's never felt as though he truly belongs. It's only when he slides in behind Bumblebee's steering wheel or stands staring up thirty-plus feet and speaking with Optimus that everything clicks into place. It's a taxing job and it puts strain on his and Carly's relationship, but Sam has never felt as satisfied doing anything else.

Pulling his jacket tighter around him, he makes his way down through the main terminal and out into the freezing parking lot where he'd left Bumblebee. His thoughts keep circling around each other and he's so caught up between already acutely missing his girlfriend and the bone-deep aggravation he will no doubt be feeling by the time Mearing is done with him this afternoon, that Sam almost doesn't realize that Bumblebee is not where he parked him whenever they'd arrived.

"'Bee?" he calls out, hoping against hope that the Camaro hasn't run off and left him stranded at the airport. "Bumblebee!"

The only thing it gets him is a couple of odd looks from passersby.

"Dammit, 'Bee," he mutters to himself and pulls out his phone which has been off since he walked into the airport. It's only upon booting it back up that he realizes that his car's unscheduled disappearance might mean something more than just a joyride: there are two missed calls from Mearing and three from Lennox, a voicemail each, and an emergency text from Bumblebee himself which simply reads: DECEPTICONS AT HQ. AUTOBOTS NEED ME.

Swearing to himself, Sam pulls up his contacts and calls Mearing without listening to either of the voicemails. He can well imagine what they will say. She answers on the second ring, sounding breathless but ultimately no worse for wear despite the supposed battle going on around her. "Witwicky?"

Concern making him irritable, Sam blurts out, "Who else would be calling you from this number?" He makes his way out of the parking lot and onto the snowy sidewalk at a swift pace, looking for a cab. He's unsure of what he can do at headquarters but he knows that he wants to help.

"Where the hell are you?" Mearing asks, choosing to ignore his sarcasm. "Why didn't you answer your phone?"

"I was at the airport—now I'm on my way there. What the hell's going on? I got calls from you and Lennox and Bumblebee's run off on me; he says you guys are under attack or something?"

In the distant background of the call, Sam can hear men shouting and the screech of metal grinding against metal. This ominous sound is countered by the shrill cry of sirens that he can hear coming from the southeast. He quickens his pace.

Mearing, when she finally does answer him, manages to sound both worried and monumentally pissed off. "Five rogue Decepticons came up on the Arland D. Williams Memorial Bridge; Optimus, Dino, and Sideswipe went to intercept them and, at their last transmission, they had entered the East Potomac Park. In other news, whenever they rolled out, two more Decepticons attacked here. Ratchet and Colonel Lennox's team managed to hold them off until Bumblebee showed up and we've—"

But exactly what Mearing and Lennox have done is suddenly lost in a horn blast from directly behind Sam, startling him so badly that his phone goes clattering to the concrete and he loses the call. As he stoops with a curse to pick it up out of the thin crusting of snow, he sees in his peripheral vision that a black car has pulled up next to him. Sam is halfway through standing back up and is already screaming at the asshole, when he realizes that there's no one behind the wheel.

There's a brief moment where he simply stares at the car—an old, beat up Challenger—before the passenger door swings open and a deep, warm voice sounds over the radio: "Please get in, Samuel Witwicky."

Heedless of the line of cars sitting behind the Challenger, Sam approaches him warily. He curls his numb fingers over the top of the door and leans down to look inside. "Who are you?" he asks the empty interior.

"I am not a Decepticon, if that is your worry, Samuel Witwicky."

"So, you're an Autobot?"

The powerful engine hums consideringly, before the car responds, "No, not really."

In all of his time working with the Autobots, Sam's never heard of a Cybertronian being a neutral party in the civil war between them and the Decepticons. "I wasn't aware that you could simply sit out. I thought you were either an Autobot or a Decepticon."

"Not everything is so black and white, Samuel Witwicky," the Challenger replies smoothly. There's a moment of quiet punctuated by the sounds of horns and expletives from the line of vehicles piled up behind him, before he asks, "Are you going to get in? You did want to get to your friends, did you not?"

Sam considers his options. Optimus, Sideswipe, and Dino are out at East Potomac Park fighting with a small force of rogue Decepticons and Ratchet and Bumblebee are being held down at the base with Lennox's team by two more. He breathes out through his nose and nods to himself—with Lennox there, 'Bee and Ratchet can handle two Decepticons easily. In fact, they've probably already taken them out if Sam knows his Guardian as well as he thinks. "Will you fight?" he asks the strangely neutral transformer.

In response the black car lets his engine roar.

Sam nods and slides into the passenger seat, slamming the door behind him. "All right then, let's go and help out Optimus Prime. He and two others are fighting five Decepticons in East Potomac Park. You know the way?"

"Fasten your seatbelt," the Challenger says in reply and peels away from the curb.

Sam does as he's bid and presses himself back into the seat as the car rockets down a small side street and merges onto 267. Holiday traffic is thick but they weave deftly through it at break-neck speed, the Challenger finding openings that a human driver never could; where there are no openings, the car swerves into the breakdown lane or shifts up to drive with two wheels settled on the cement barricade. Not wanting to break the car's concentration, Sam stays silent through most of the ride other than a few startled squeaks and one particularly memorable cry of alarm when the Challenger had shifted down into Stealth Mode to drive straight under the trailer of an eighteen-wheeler. When they reach a fairly deserted stretch of road, Sam broaches a question. "What's your name, anyway?"

"Name?"

"Yeah, you know. Like my name is Sam Witwicky. I guess you guys call it your designation or something like that?"

The radio, alarmingly, screeches static for a moment before going silent. Sam glances over at it before reaching out and touching the dash as he would if Bumblebee were upset about something.

"Hey, you okay?"

The Challenger remains silent aside from the thrum of his engine, seemingly focused on navigating the ice-slick road without killing the two of them. Sam settles back into his cold seat once again. _Well, I guess that's the end of that conversation._

The rest of the drive is done in silence. Sam is so anxious about getting to Optimus and the others that, when the car simply jumps the toll booth, he doesn't even berate it as he would have with Bumblebee or Sideswipe. Eventually they get off of 267 and merge onto I-66, traveling east until they reach the icy Potomac, at which point they turn south on George Washington Memorial. The stretch of ice-black water slides by the driver's side window, broken sporadically by chunks of white and grey as the river tries to freeze. Without the radio on to offer background noise, Sam can now hear the familiar, thunderous sounds of a mech battle taking place not far away.

When the black car goes to circumnavigate the loop off of George Washington Memorial and onto the bridge, Sam finds a line of cars and, farther ahead, several police cruisers blocking their way.

"We gotta get past this roadblock," he says as he digs out his badge that Mearing had given him for situations just like this. "We gotta get over there and talk to those cops so they can let us through."

"Talk?" the Challenger asks, his voice startling to Sam after such a long time without hearing it. "We have no time for talk, Samuel Witwicky. Please brace yourself."

And with that ominous message the car begins to shift around him, growing taller and dropping the roof down so that Sam nearly gets a concussion. He yells and throws his arms out as the interior rolls sharply forward; it's only his seatbelt and the hasty incision of his knees against the glove compartment that keep him from going straight down through the windshield.

By the time he's oriented himself enough to look around Sam can only watch in dismay as the half-transformed mech forgoes the ramp up to the bridge and simply hops up onto the parapet above them, crawling along past the other motorists and the stunned police officers. Once past the barricade, the world shifts drastically once again and Sam is battered against the top of the car before the mech finally transforms back into the speeding Challenger.

As they begin to cross the bridge, Sam slumps down in his seat, one hand over his eyes and the other over his mouth. The car gives a little shudder and suddenly there is blisteringly cold wind buffeting Sam's face from the open passenger window. "If you are feeling emetic," the radio states tersely, "please be sure to you purge _outside_ of my interior."

Sam just groans and cranks the window back up, deciding that the wisest course of action is to say nothing until they get to the park. Instead he lets the Challenger do the driving and stares out of his window toward where he can see plumes of black smoke and flashes of red and silver moving through the skeleton trees.

With no cars to slow him down, the black car makes it across the bridge and onto Southwest in record time, taking the first off-ramp he finds and plowing straight through into the deserted park. Even if Sam couldn't hear the teeth-rattling crashes of mechs fighting in the distance, the smoking craters from energon cannons and wide swaths of newly-exposed dirt cut into the frosted grass would tell him that they are in the right place. "Head towards the golf course. Sounds like that's where they moved the fight to."

The car silently obliges, driving through a copse of naked trees and across a field towards what would have been a rather impressive golf ball fence had it not been recently leveled. Twisted metal rattles beneath the mech's tires as he rolls over the downed barrier and enters the desolate golf course. Sam leans forward in his seat, squinting to see out the clouded windshield.

"Look, look! There's Dino!" he says with alarm, hitting the dash several times for emphasis. It's easy to spot the violently red Autobot against the grey sky and the Challenger pulls to a stop some distance away, leaving Sam to stare out in apprehension. Dino appears to be fairing well against the large black-and-rust colored Decepticon that he's fighting, however, using his grappling blades to attack its legs and vulnerable face from a distance.

Satisfied that the Autobot is safe for now, Sam scans the horizon in search of Sideswipe and Optimus. He's just about to tell the black car to drive further into the fray when a plume of dirt and fire erupts from behind a small hillock nearly halfway across the course. Sideswipe comes spinning out of it, his tires skidding on the grass and two Decepticons hot on his tail. He throws himself down onto his belly midway through the spin and throws out both arms—Sam can only assume that he has his guns drawn because one of the Decepticon's faces explodes in a shower of sparks. While it falls back, gripping at its head, the second one surges forward; it catches Sideswipe by one of his legs, seemingly trying to rip it off as the silver Autobot lashes out with the blades he keeps attached to his forearms.

There's suddenly a loud bellow and Sam catches sight of a blue and red blur as Optimus comes charging in with gusto. He has a small grey Decepticon clawing at his back, trying to blow fiery chunks out of his armor with some sort of cannon. Despite his long reach Optimus can't seem to get at the thing and with an aggravated roar he transforms down into his alt form. The change is enough to shift the scrabbling Decepticon and it slips off as the Peterbuilt takes a sharp right turn.

Once the other mech has been dislodged, Optimus makes to transform back but the 'Con seeks retribution by firing his cannon on Prime's back tires in rapid succession. The force blows out what is essentially a thigh and Optimus stumbles out of his transformation and straight into a sand pit with enough force for Sam to feel it even at this distance.

"Optimus!" he shouts, clawing at the door handle and his seatbelt simultaneously. Neither gives. "Let me out! What the hell are you doing? Let me out now! _Optimus!_"

The Challenger remains stubbornly locked and stationary as the battle wages. Sam can only watch in horror as the smaller Decepticon approaches the pit where the Autobot leader went down, his cannon drawn and pointed at the fallen mech. Still locked in their own battles, Sideswipe and Dino are yelling out for Prime to get up but are ultimately unable to help him.

Sam feels white hot rage billowing up inside of him. He slams his fists against the dashboard over and over again, screaming, "What are you doing? You need to help him! You said you were gonna fight—get out there and _fight_, you sonofabitch!"

"Please calm yourself, Samuel Witwicky," comes the calm voice from the radio.

"Calm myself? They're about to kill my friend! What are you gonna do about that?"

There's a pause just long enough for Sam to twist within the confines of his seatbelt and get his feet up to kick at the passenger window before the Challenger responds, "I am going to kill them all."

And that's the only warning Sam gets before the roar of the engine deafens him and the car begins to transform around him once again. The dashboard folds down against his thighs painfully, the roof caves in, and Sam only catches one last glimpse of grey sky before the world goes dark.


	2. I Get Shut Down, Locked Up

**Chapter 2: I Get Shut Down, Locked Up**

Optimus' chronometer helpfully informs him that it has taken nearly thirty nanokliks to boot back up after he had gotten slammed by Fracas's incendiary cannon. Once his optics are back online, he has to quickly deal with the myriad of alarms scrolling down his HUD: massive internal and external damage; leaking energon and coolant; pain sensors all down his left leg are screaming at him and he shuts them down ruthlessly, deadening the useless limb.

He's just dismissed the last of the low-grade warnings and is pushing himself up when Fracas reappears at the edge of the pit that he has fallen into, pointing the whirring cannon at his helm. The Autobot grits his dentals behind his battle mask, redirecting all possible power to his right leg and his arms. Optimus silently dares the Decepticon to come close enough to get ahold of him.

Fracas looks down on him with a grin, his optics casting a bloody wash over his grey face. "How pathetic! The last of the great Primes—scourge of Megatron and the Decepticons ten times over—sitting in the dirt, bested by little old me."

"Why are you doing this, Fracas? The war is over."

"You are a fool, Prime. The war will never be over as long as Decepticons and Autobots both still exist within the universe. You thought that with Megatron dead we would all happily surrender to you and yours? Tell me, if you were killed would your soldiers lay down their arms?"

Optimus answers without the slightest hesitation: "They would hunt you all down and destroy you."

Fracas bears his teeth in feral glee. "I look forward to it," he breathes and takes a step forward. With all of the power he can afford, Optimus surges up, getting his good leg under him and swinging out an energon blade at Fracas's head. The 'Con nimbly ducks it even at this range and brings his cannon up to press against Optimus' shoulder. The blast is enough to nearly wrench the limb from his body and he crumples onto the lip of the sandpit at Fracas's feet.

New warnings flare red across his HUD and he can hear Sideswipe and Mirage calling out to him. He dismisses everything except the fact that Fracas is still standing before him and he can all but feel the whine of his cannon charging. "Oh, Optimus," the Decepticon taunts, clicking his glossa condescendingly, "you'll never learn, will you?"

"I have nothing to learn from slag like you," Optimus growls and looks up at the other mech, his optics glowing incandescently blue with fury.

Fracas hums a note of consideration and then presses the barrel of his cannon against one of those blazing optics. "Goodbye, Prime," he says and squeezes the trigger.

Something dark and heavy slams brutally into the Decepticon's right side, pinwheeling them both away and causing the cannon's shot to go wide. Optimus allows himself a nanoklik of shock before he silently thanks Primus and begins to redirect power to all of his vital systems. As he shuts down energon flow to his now worthlessly dangling arm and opens all of his vents to cool his rapidly heating body, his audials catch the sounds of Fracas's cannon being fired twice more before everything finally falls silent.

A cycle later, footsteps approach from the east and Optimus is already tightening his armor around his protoform before his field catches on the other mech's: Mirage. The red Autobot drops down to one knee next to him and places a hand against his good shoulder. When he speaks, his Italian accent is thick with concern. "Hey Prime, how you feelin'?"

Optimus shakes his helm and retracts his battle mask. "As if I've been shot," he grumbles.

"Oh well, I guess it's a good thing that you were, then. Otherwise you wouldn't know what had happened."

Despite the pain running through his neural lines, Optimus vents a short laugh at that before going back to taking care of the more severe warnings on his HUD. Once he's dampened the pain sensors across his body, reduced the coolant leak to a mere 6.8%, and sent off a comm. message to Ratchet asking for an assisted evac, he pushes himself up and out of the pit as best he can. "Sideswipe?" he calls as Mirage helps him to his feet.

"Right here, Prime," the Warrior states as he rolls up, flicking blue energon off of his blades primly. "Fraggers fought like wild animals. You all right, Sir?"

"I've been better," Optimus admits. He scans the surrounding area. "Where is Fracas?"

In response to his question, several grey hunks of metal come sailing out of the neighboring sand trap and clatter down a few meters away from them. The two mechs at his sides step forward and bring up their blades. Optimus, however, narrows his optics at what has just landed before them: a gutted chest cavity, spark chamber torn out, and the remains of Fracas's incendiary cannon. The large mech studies the pieces of debris, filing away information, until a short hiss and a field flare from Mirage tells him that whoever destroyed the small Decepticon is now emerging.

The three Autobots watch guardedly as the mech pulls himself out of the sandpit, staring back at them with bright green optics. Optimus' processor takes in numerous observations at once and then he cycles through them to examine them in detail. The first thing that he draws out is also the most obvious: this mech is a Quadbot—an animalistic transformer. This fact coupled with his size is enough of a worry for the Autobot and his processor helpfully flashes images of Hatchet, the Decepticon strategist, at him for a reference.

Straight on the heels of this thought comes another startling one. Optimus has been alive for a long time; he has led hundreds of Autobots into battle and has fought nearly twice that amount of Decepticons, putting himself between innocent civilians and them. His processor refuses to forget even the most inconsequential of mechs and, as he quickly scans through that list, he realizes that he's never seen this one before.

He opens an internal comm. with his two officers. _:Does he look familiar to either of you?:_

Mirage's field gives a burst of negative and Sideswipe answers back over the comm. _:No, Sir. _Primus_, have you felt his field yet?:_

Instead of answering, Optimus pulses his own field out to mingle with that of the newcomer's and he has to fight not to violently recoil—it's dark and thick, oily and disgusting in a way that he hasn't felt since his first cube of energon refined from fossil fuels. Not even the worst of Decepticons had felt so tainted.

Optimus draws his own field in close and straightens as best as he can. "My name is Optimus Prime. Please state your designation and your intentions and no harm will come to you."

"I am sorry, Optimus Prime," the Quadbot replies in a voice that is rich, warm, and wholly surprising to the three gathered Autobots, "but I cannot supply you with a designation."

Sideswipe brings one of his guns up to level at the black mech. "You refuse to tell us your name, Decepticon?"

The Quadbot glances at him and then summarily dismisses him, looking back to Optimus to answer the question. "I am not a Decepticon, as I told young Samuel Witwicky—"

Optimus feels Mirage and Sideswipe bristle on either side of him. "You talked to Sam?" Mirage hisses. "When?"

Green optics narrow consideringly and it's enough for Optimus to unsheathe his energon blade despite the alarms that pop up across his HUD when he does so. He points it at the mech's helm and sends a hot flare of his field to batter against the Quadbot's. "Where is Sam? Consider your answer very carefully because I will not ask a second time."

Cocking his helm to one side, the black mech shunts air through his vents in a snort. There is then a click and whir as the latches holding his chest plates together unlock and the two panes of metal separate a fraction. As the dark space within is revealed, the Quadbot lifts one heavily-clawed hand and catches something as it comes tumbling out.

Optimus shutters his optics in a blink of surprise as the plates close and reseal, and the Quadbot gently deposits Sam Witwicky onto the ground before him. A quick scan shows that the boy is completely covered in the clear, viscous gel that usually surrounds a spark chamber in a mech's chest. Aside from that and an elevated heart rate, Sam appears to be unhurt.

He is standing with his eyes closed and his hands held up and away from his body, trembling. When Sideswipe leans in close and asks, "You okay, Sam?" the young man seems to explode.

"Okay?" he shrieks, flinging gel everywhere and leaning over to spit it out in the dirt. "No, I am not fucking okay! That was the single most terrifying thing that has happened to me so far this week and it was the most _disgusting_ thing I have _ever_ experienced in my life! You!" he screams, whirling on the Quadbot. "What the fuck was that?"

The black mech shifts on his feet, gears whining. "You wished for me to help your friend, Samuel Witwicky, so that is what I did. Was this outcome displeasing to you?"

"Displeasing? _Displeasing?_ It was—it was displeasing to be wrapped up l-like a Christmas present against my will, stuck inside some giant alien robot and covered in—_what the hell is this stuff?_"

"That 'stuff'," Sideswipe answers with an amused field flare, "is a protective gel that surrounds our spark chambers."

"It acts like the pericardium does for the human heart," Optimus adds, shifting to put more weight on his undamaged leg—the pain sensors have been deadened, but he can still feel that the incendiary cannon has weakened the structural integrity of his thigh. The last thing he needs is for his leg to completely fail before Ratchet can get here. "It protects our sparks in battle by cushioning them."

Sam runs his hands across his face and over his hair, wiping away what he can and throwing it to the ground. "Yeah, well, it's disgusting. It smells like diesel and it got everywhere. It's in my ears; it's in my nose; it's in places that no straight man should ever have lubricants—that's all I'm saying!"

Mirage sniggers. Sideswipe just rolls his optics.

"I do apologize for any inconvenience that I caused you, Samuel Witwicky," the Quadbot says earnestly, lowering his head to be at eye level with the flustered human. "You wished for me to help and I would not leave you unattended in battle. I stand by my decision." Sideswipe and Mirage glance at each other and seem to unconsciously relax their stances.

Sam shoves his fists down into his pockets with a squelch and huffs out a huge sigh, apparently losing all of his righteous anger. "It's ok-kay," he admits, starting to tremble now that the adrenaline is wearing off. Optimus scans his core temperature and quickly sends off a new comm. message to Ratchet to include an ambulance in their evac.

"We need to get you somewhere warm, Sam. You are already in the beginning stages of hypothermia."

"I'm f-fine, Op-p-ptimus-s," he insists shakily, this statement contradicted by the fact that his lips are beginning to turn blue. "Are y-you ok-k-kay? You look like y-you t-t-took some ma-major d-damage."

Despite the gravity of the situation, Optimus feels the plates around his lips shift into a thin smile at Sam's concern. "I have recovered from worse, as you know." The Autobot leader then opens up a comm. with his two soldiers. _:We need to get him inside somewhere. If his core temperature drops past 20 °C he will most likely not recover.:_

_:There is a recreational facility in the park: _Mirage responds, pointing in the general direction of the memorial building. _:I could take him there until Ratchet and Bumblebee arrive with the ambulance.:_

_:Good. Sideswipe and I will stay here with the Quad. We will comm. you whenever—:_

"I can help."

The sound of the Quadbot's voice being spoken aloud is somewhat startling in relation to the comm. conversation that's being held and Sideswipe actually flinches. Optimus turns to regard the black mech. "You can help with what?"

"You are trying to raise Samuel Witwicky's internal temperature, are you not? I can help."

The Autobot leader narrows his optics into slits. "How?"

"I have an energon-fueled turbine attached to my gular plates—its primary function is as a weapon that produces fire, but it can also be used to create heated air. It would keep him warm until your associates arrive. And before you ask how I know that," he continues when Mirage opens his mouth, "I can feel them coming."

At Optimus' hesitation, Sam looks up at the large, angular head hovering above him and chatters out, "Th-th-that would be f-f-f-fucking f-fant-tastic. Y-you mind d-d-doing that n-now and n-n-not lat-t-ter?"

The Quadbot merely stares at Optimus, waiting for his permission. The Prime, however, is torn: the mech's field still gives off a feeling that humans would compare to standing chest-deep in raw sewage and Optimus isn't sure whether they can trust him; however, without help—help that the present Autobots cannot provide—Sam will most certainly die. Even if Mirage gets him to the memorial building, there's no guarantee that anyone will be there now. So the choices are to trust this dark mech that not only protected Sam within his own body but also killed Fracas, or to let Sam freeze to death on a golf course.

No choice at all, really. Optimus nods his helm and watches with wary optics as the Quadbot opens his jaws over the human—his snout is long and blunt, mouth filled with dozens of sharp, curved dente. The Autobots all tense protectively and Sideswipe raises both of his guns to train on the mech.

Everything is quiet for a brief klik before a soft, humming drone fills the air around them. Optimus takes a reading of the temperature around Sam, noting with approval that it is quickly rising; a scan of Sam's core temperature shows a similar trend. As his young friend slowly stops trembling, the protective gel coating his body drying up and flaking off in the heat, Optimus finds his taut struts relaxing minutely.

With the Quadbot occupied, Prime takes a cycle to study him more closely. He is large compared to the handful of other animalistic mechs and femmes that Optimus has encountered in his lifetime—not much shorter than Bumblebee and, with his tail, a little longer than Optimus is tall. His frame is light, built like Sideswipe or Arcee for speed and maneuverability over power. He's young as well, probably not any older than Bumblebee or the Twins had been.

Optimus squints his optics and begins cycling through images that he's pulled off of the Web. Where most Bipedal mechs resemble humans in some form, Quadbots can range from feline (like Ravage) to avian (Laserbeak) to an amalgamation of sorts (like Hatchet). The Autobot leader takes in the extraneous bits of metal running across the crown of the black mech's helm and down his backstrut to the tip of his tail, the wicked-looking claws, and the soft glow of fire emanating from the back of his throat; he inputs this all and his processor almost instantaneously boots up hundreds of human-created images of a creature called a dragon. Optimus is beginning to look through them, bringing up reference pages for the apparently mythical beast at the same time, when his comm. system pings with an incoming message.

He dismisses the material he's been studying and answers. _:Ratchet?:_

_:Yes, Prime. Bumblebee and I are entering the park. I had the evac trailer and the ambulance both drive around to the memorial building to wait for us there.:_

_:Thank you, Ratchet. We're on the golf course. Come and meet us here.:_

A wash of quiet static tells Optimus that Ratchet has switched to a private frequency. _:Everyone all right, Optimus?:_

_:Yes, we're all fine. I am in need of repair but it's nothing that you cannot fix. What happened at headquarters?:_

There's a disgusted sigh. _:Lockdown and Sixshot showed up just as the three of you got out of range. I have no idea what they were after or why the energon detectors didn't pick them up before they were right on top of us, but I don't think they expected for Bumblebee to join us.:_

_:Did anyone get hurt?:_

_:Marks and Garcia were killed before I could get out of the MedBay and there were several more injuries amongst the humans. Bumblebee took out Sixshot but Lockdown got away.: _Ratchet's frustrated _Of course _goes unsaid. _:What happened with you? Why an ambulance?:_

_:Sam is here.: _Through the comm. connection Optimus can hear the harsh crackle of static that signals panic and quickly cuts off Ratchet's line of thought. _:He is fine. When he appeared he was coated in spark chamber cushioning gel and was on the verge of acquiring a rather severe case of hypothermia.:_

_:Spark chamber gel? How—?:_

Optimus vents a sigh and presses his fingers to the metal between his shuttered optics. Sideswipe's field touches his in concern but he gently waves it away. _:He arrived with a Quadbot, tucked up inside his chest cavity for protection.:_

_:A _Quadbot_?: _The medic sounds alarmed, his processor undoubtedly pulling up images of all the four-legged Decepticons they've ever battled. Optimus can't negate his concern, for it is well founded: Quadbots are notoriously vicious in battle, their speed and close-combat weaponry allowing them to get inside an Autobot's defenses and tear them apart with brutal efficiency. Plus, if there has ever been a Quadbot that wasn't on the side of the Decepticons, Optimus has never met it.

_:His field is tainted like nothing I've ever felt before and he refuses to tell us his name but he saved my life and he's helping Sam right now.: _Optimus drops his hand and glances at his human friend, whose core temperature is now an acceptable 35.8 °C and still rising._ :I don't know if we can trust him, but he says that he's not a Decepticon and I'm starting to believe him.:_

Anyone else in his unit would have scoffed and told him that he was being ridiculous. Ratchet simply makes a sound of consideration. _:He saved you?:_

Looking back towards the park, Optimus can see Ratchet's flashing lights in the distance; a yellow speck that he knows is Bumblebee follows closely behind. _:I will wait for you to arrive before I tell you more. I'd like for you to form your own opinions.:_

_:Right, Sir. Ratchet out.:_

As the comm. cuts out Optimus turns back to the others. "Ratchet and Bumblebee are nearly here," he says for the benefit of Sam and the dragon mech. "Sam, there is an ambulance waiting for you at the memorial building."

"I don't think I need an ambulance," he says over the drone of the turbine. Though his skin is now dry and warm, his clothes are still damp with the gel. "This is definitely helping."

"All the same, I would appreciate it if you would allow a human medical officer to look at you."

"Yeah, Sam," Sideswipe intones, his guns now pointed at the ground. "If you survived through all the slag that Megatron dished out and were killed because you got too cold, I don't think your mother would ever forgive us."

"Not to mention Carly," Mirage added.

Sideswipe nods his helm and says something else but Optimus' attention is caught by his medic and lieutenant entering the golf course through the destroyed fence. Bumblebee has pulled ahead of Ratchet and is now charging towards the group, his tires kicking up frosted dirt and metallic viscera, his engine screaming.

Optimus gets a warning ping from Ratchet a nanoclik after he realizes what this scene must look like: the three injured Autobots standing some meters away from a strange Quadbot, who is looming over Sam with his mouth open and fire in the back of his throat.

"Bumblebee, stand down!" he bellows, but the yellow Camaro is already too close, rolling out of his alt form and barreling into the Quadbot with the sound of two freight trains colliding. The force is enough to cartwheel the two mechs away from Sam, who instinctively falls to the ground and wraps his arms over his head.

In the next second he is up again, screaming at his Guardian. "Bumblebee, stop!"

They wind up several meters away in a ball of eight flailing limbs, ferocious snarls, and squealing metal. Bumblebee's radio squawks to life and the voice of Sigourney Weaver hisses out of it, _"Get away from her, you _bitch_!"_

The Quadbot roars in return, using the close-contact to tear into Bumblebee's armor with his claws and dente, trying to get to the delicate circuitry underneath. In response, the yellow mech tightens his plates, draws down his battle mask, and fires his cannon straight into the dragon's right shoulder. With a shout, the black mech surges up and gets his claws underneath Bumblebee's mask. There is a sickening _crack_ and the left side of it goes flying.

Bumblebee bucks back to avoid the sharp digits trying to grasp at his exposed face and shifts to deal a swift punch to the side of the Quadbot's neck. Instead of fighting it, the dragon mech rolls with the blow. He uses the space to get one of his powerful back legs up between them and rakes his claws along Bumblebee's chassis, drawing fresh energon.

This all happens in three astroseconds, barely enough time for Optimus to shutter an optic. Sam is screaming, Ratchet is swearing in Cybertronian, and from the heady trembling of their fields it feels as though Mirage and Sideswipe are waiting for an opportune moment to intervene.

Optimus, for one, is tired of fighting today. He digs deep down into a long-forgotten section of his CPU and brings up archaic glyphs that were once used instead of comm. connections by the officers. He spends a few precious nanokliks linking them up with his motherboard and then flares his field out to strike against the two battling mechs'. The Cybertronian glyphs for _authority_, _command_, and _cease fire_ weave through their fields and into their processors, shutting both of them down as effectively as if they'd had the thought themselves.

The two transformers come to rest with Bumblebee looming over the pinned dragon, one hand clasped into the delicate neural cables of his throat and the other pressing a cannon against the side of his angular head. The dark mech has his bad arm trapped beneath him, the other hand reaching up to dig sharp talons through the eyehole of the remaining half of Bumblebee's battle mask. His back leg is still tucked between them, claws digging painfully into the yellow Autobot's hip and the door of his interface panel; his tail is curled up against Bumblebee's chassis, the wicked protrusion on its tip jammed up underneath a chest plate and trying to wrench it away.

Optimus forces a weary breath through his vents. "That is _enough_," he states, backing it up with a glyph of _stand down_. "Bumblebee, back away from him right now."

The Camaro powers down his cannon almost immediately but still keeps it pressed against the Quadbot's temple, skeptically glancing over his shoulder at his commander. Optimus grits his dente, frustration coloring his field and making him see static at the edges of his vision. "That was not a suggestion, soldier."

Sam steps forward at the same time to assure his Guardian. "It's okay, 'Bee," he says, holding up his hands. "See? He wasn't trying to hurt me. Come back over here, yeah?"

The combination of Optimus's order and Sam's plaintive request is enough for Bumblebee to completely shut down his weapons systems and release the Quadbot's neck. In response, the black mech removes his claws and tail from Bumblebee's armor—though none too gently—and backs away, silvery dente still bared.

Bumblebee retreats to Sam's side, squatting down and offering a hand to his charge. _"What in the wide, wide world of sports is a'goin' on here . . . Sam?"_

Sam reaches up and takes ahold of one large digit with his whole hand, giving it a little shake. "It's okay, big guy."

Optimus watches the two of them for a klik, then turns his attention back to the Quadbot. The dragon is standing some distance away, venting heavily; panels that run along his snout and sides are thrown open to dump steam out into the cold air, and his shoulder is torn open and sparking where Bumblebee shot him. Optimus goes to scan him for any internal damage and finds that, instead of a complicated readout of the dark mech's systems, he receives an error message and a blackout code. Specialized clearance only—Optimus isn't even sure if Ratchet will be able to look without the Quadbot's express permission.

A startled and aggravated field burst from the bright green mech next to him tells Optimus that his assumption is correct.

Disconcerted, the Autobot leader pulls out of the scan and focuses on the mech's face. The Quadbot is watching him with optics bright from battle, his own field pulsing dark around him.

"What do you want?" Optimus asks, the renewed low-grade alarms streaming down his HUD making the question come out with more irritation than he intends.

The dragon glances at Bumblebee when the lieutenant stands from his crouch but quickly brings his attention back to Optimus to answer the question. "I need your help, Optimus Prime."

"Help with what?" It's Ratchet who asks, stepping up to Optimus's side. He can feel the medic's field brushing against his, awash with concern and uncertainty.

"It is—" He cuts himself off and Optimus watches his optics go slightly hazy, considering. "Complicated," he finishes at last. "But in return for your assistance, I will do my best to provide you with whatever knowledge and protection you may need."

"W-wait a minute, wait a minute," Sam calls, stepping up and waving a hand for attention. The Quadbot looks down at him. "You're not making any sense. You say that you want our help, then you refuse to tell us what you need help with, but you guarantee us help in return. For what? What would we need help with?"

"Besides Decepticons," Mirage intones. "And you've proven yourself to be mighty handy when dealin' with them."

"Decepticons are the least of your worries now, I regret to admit," the Quadbot says.

There's a microbreem of silence before a frisson of unease crackles through the Autobots' fields at this statement. Optimus narrows his optics. "What do you mean by that?"

The Quadbot looks back at him and murmurs, "Something is coming."

"Something?" Sam asks, shaking his head in confusion. He is trembling again and Optimus's scan tells him that the temperature of the boy's epidermis and subcutaneous tissues has already dropped a few degrees. "Something like what?"

For a long cycle Optimus thinks that the dragon mech is simply going to ignore the question. His optics are focused on a point over Optimus' shoulder and the Autobot's audials pick up the subtle clicking of gears and creaking of twisted metal in his shoulder as he shifts. Just when Optimus is about to reach out with a glyph to compel him to speak, the Quadbot breaks his silence. "It is a long story, Samuel Witwicky, and one that I will not tell with you standing in the cold and two of your friends leaking energon."

Sideswipe huffs out a decidedly unamused ventilation. "Was that a request to come back to our base of operations?"

"Perhaps."

This conversation is going nowhere. The Prime is weary beyond all reason, his struts aching despite the dampened pain sensors, and he desperately wishes for a berth. "You protected Sam and saved me when you did not have to. For that you have my thanks. However, I cannot allow a stranger to walk into our headquarters without any information on them."

"Mearing would freak," Sam mutters, looking up at Bumblebee.

"You have a blackout code embedded in your processor. Disable it so that Ratchet may scan you and we will see about honoring your request, Quadbot."

The dark mech shakes his helm, mouth plates curving down into a frown. "I am sorry, Optimus Prime, but I cannot."

"Can't," Ratchet asks levelly, "or won't?"

"It is the former, I assure you. The block that you are encountering when you attempt to scan me is a forced blackout code that was written into my CPU. Even I do not have the ability to disable it. The only way that I know of would be to manually go into my processor and take it apart piece by piece, which I trust no one to do." The Quadbot allows that bit of information to sink in and then continues. "This is the same reason that I have yet, you will have noticed, to give you a designation. I do not have one. I know that I must have at some point but it has been lost."

Sam makes a startled sound. "You lost your name?"

"Yes." He doesn't look too disturbed by this fact, though Optimus can feel the unease drifting through the fields of the other Autobots. It's odd for a mech to not have a name. Even under extreme circumstances—like the installation of a forced blackout code—most healthy processors would boot back up and eventually recall the designation written into circuits and along processor chips. "I have been on my own for a very long time now, so there was no need to have one. The air through my vents; the soil beneath my claws; the feeling of rain pounding down against my backstrut—that is what makes me who I am and there is no one word to properly describe that. However, if you insist on calling me something you may refer to me as Harvester."

Optimus quickly runs the name through his processor and, though he does get back several logs that reference the Star Harvesters that the original Primes had used to power the AllSpark, no information comes through on any mech named that. Given what he's just heard, though, he's not surprised.

"Why Harvester?" Mirage asks.

"Because that is what I am."

Sam squints and tucks himself next to Bumblebee's leg to get out of the wind. "What's that supposed to mean, anyway?" he asks, but Harvester merely smiles.

"All in good time, Samuel Witwicky."

And with that he folds himself down into his alt form and says no more. Ratchet frowns, looks up at Optimus. "Prime, what do you think?"

Through the haze that pain and low energon bring, Optimus considers what needs to be done. The mech—Harvester—has requested their assistance in some matter that appears to rank above the Decepticons in his optics and, by association, has also requested asylum with them. He himself is not a Decepticon as far as Optimus is aware, though that doesn't mean that he is not a threat: the state of Bumblebee's armor and helm is enough to testify to that. However . . .

Optimus vents a sigh. "Sideswipe, Mirage." The two soldiers come to attention, their fields flickering against his. "You will accompany Harvester back to headquarters. Inform Lennox and Mearing of the situation and try to keep the peace until we arrive." He then opens up a private line to the two of them. _:And watch him. He may have helped us out but he's still a Quadbot. I don't trust him yet.:_

"Yessir," they all but salute and shift into their alt forms. Harvester's engine grumbles as he follows Sideswipe off the frosty green, tailed at a distance by the red Ferrari.

"Bumblebee, I want you to take Sam to the ambulance."

"But Optimus—"

The tall mech cuts off Sam's protests with a sharp gesture. "I insist. I am sure that they will clear you and, once they have, you and Bumblebee may return to base."

Sam squints up at him, his aggravation morphing into unease as he seems to take in Optimus' exhausted expression and trembling struts. For a microbreem he looks as though he is going to voice his worry but in the end he just nods. "Okay, Optimus. No problem. We'll see you at the memorial building. C'mon 'Bee, let's go."

His lieutenant makes a chirruping whir to Sam in acknowledgement and folds down into his Camaro alt form. As Sam crawls into the driver's seat, Optimus suddenly feels the subtle brush of Bumblebee's anxious field against his own; he accepts the concern and does his best to sooth the younger mech, resisting the urge to weave a _reassurance _glyph in.

As the two of them drive away towards the waiting ambulance, Ratchet comes up to stand on his right side. "I hope you know what you're doing, Prime."

"So do I, old friend," Optimus sighs wearily, reaching up to rub a hand over his brow.

The medic hums and pulls Optimus's good arm up around his shoulders, tucking himself into the tall mech's side. "Come on," he insists, turning him toward the memorial building where the evac trailer is parked. "Your chariot awaits." And with that the two mechs begin their slow, halting journey across the golf course.

* * *

_Second chapter up! I will be doing a bi-monthly posting schedule (every other Tuesday), so that I have more time to write. I thank you in advance for your patience. Also, for anyone who is wondering, the title of the story and the chapter titles come from the song 'Tonight' by Toby Mac feat. John Cooper._

_Thanks! Any feedback is much appreciated._


	3. And Held Captive

**Chapter 3: And Held Captive**

Colonel Lennox's head feels as though a Decepticon is merrily playing kickball with his brain. He closes his eyes and pinches at the bridge of his nose to try and stave off a headache—it's something that his father used to do but as far as Lennox can tell it has absolutely no effect.

His men are in disarray, many injured or MIA and at least two dead. Mearing is still yelling into her phone, lashing out at anyone who crosses her path, and it's been over an hour since Bumblebee and Ratchet had rolled out to give Optimus an assist, with no word yet from the Autobots. As far as Lennox is concerned, he's well within his rights to have a perfectly monstrous headache.

And it just gets worse when Eddie "Ewok" Jenkins comes charging across the destroyed Conference Bay, leaping over fallen equipment and calling out, "We got an energon reading comin' in hot, Colonel! Three of 'em headed this way!"

Everyone around them is in motion before Lennox has even responded. "Is it the Autobots?"

"No idea, Sir," Ewok pants as he comes to a halt at Lennox's side. "Two of 'em are strong readin's and the third is really faint. Almost didn't realize it was there."

Lennox thinks about how Ratchet had taken the eighteen-wheeler with the evac trailer attached, usually used for the Autobots who are too heavily damaged in battle to transform and drive back to base. It's probably two of their allies accompanying a third, more seriously injured mech, but if that's the case . . .

"We can't get them on the horn?"

"No, Sir. Transmission equipment was damaged by one of the 'Cons—that green one with the hook? We can't contact 'em and if they're tryin' to contact us, we got no way of knowin'."

Lennox heaves a disgusted sigh and raises his voice to be heard over the din. "All right, people! You heard Jenkins—we got three energon sources coming this way! It's probably the Autobots but since we can't reach them right now I want all able bodies up and in position, weapons hot! Get these wounded out of here and someone tell those ambulances to shut those damn sirens off—I wanna be able to here these 'bots coming!" At his command, Lennox's wounded, exhausted men scramble into action, bussing the seriously injured away to safer locations and moving around to cover both exits. The colonel unshoulders his Mk 46 Mod 0 and takes position next to Alvarez, one of his lieutenants.

Vincent Alvarez is shorter than Lennox by about a head, stocky, dark-skinned, and one of the most competent soldiers that Lennox has ever commanded, second only to Epps. He's also a damn-near perfect sniper and, as Lennox checks the ammunition in his own rifle and settles it firmly against his right collarbone, he feels calmer for having the man at his side. As the last of his men come back into his line of sight and fall into position, Lennox calls out, "Remember guys, take it easy. We don't know who this is but let's not fire on our friends just because we're a little shaken up, all right?"

A chorus of _Sir, yes, sir!_-s answers him back from all around the Conference Bay entrance. Lennox breathes out through his nose, settles more firmly into a crouch behind some debris, and waits.

The hangar is eerily quiet aside from the sounds of sparking electronics and papers rustling in the cold wind. All the ambulances sitting outside have finally cut their sirens and any unnecessary personnel have cleared away and gone into hiding. Even Mearing is no longer five feet up his ass, which is nearly impossible to do. Lennox would almost be thankful to the Decepticons for getting her out of his hair if it hadn't cost him the lives of at least two of his men and millions of dollars in equipment to do it.

The NEST soldiers are just beginning to shift uneasily, still pumped full of adrenaline from the earlier battle, when Lennox catches the familiar thrum of a Corvette's engine. He heaves out a huge sigh, rising and calling out, "Stand down! It's the Autobots," as Sideswipe pulls in through the hangar door.

Lennox has to admit that the silver car has looked better. A few of his panels are discolored and warped, shifted out of place so as not to strain an injury underneath, and one of his rear windows has a crack spider-webbing across the black glass. As Lennox approaches him, the silver mech transforms and looks around at the destroyed Conference Bay.

"Sideswipe," the colonel calls up as he reaches the mech's wheeled feet. The electric charge that lingers over the Autobots after a battle is heavy on the back of Lennox's tongue and he can smell burnt plastic and tar wafting off of the Warrior. "What happened?"

The mech doesn't answer immediately, consumed with taking in the scene around him. Lennox can only assume that Sideswipe is thinking back on the last time that headquarters had looked like this—blasted apart by Sentinel Prime—and opts to give his friend a few moments of imagined solitude. After a minute, Sideswipe seems to come back to himself.

"We killed four Decepticons," his voice rumbles as he toes at some smoldering debris. "Dirge, the fragging coward, ran off nearly ten minutes into the battle." He rolls past Lennox to examine what the colonel suspects was once the platform they used to be eye-level with the transformers during conference calls with the JCS or the President. It is now little more than a pile of twisted metal slammed up against one of the walls. "Optimus was damaged pretty heavily," Sideswipe continues. "Ratchet is bringing him back on the trailer. And Bumblebee is with Sam."

"Sam? What was Sam doing there?" Lennox had called the kid to let him know about the five Decepticons arriving in the city but once the attack on headquarters had started he had forgotten about him. Feeling suddenly guilty, he asks, "Is he okay?"

"Perfectly fine the last I saw of him. Of course, we had some help in that regard." Sideswipe straightens and points at something behind Lennox. The officer turns just as two more cars pull in to the hangar. One is the easily recognizable alt form of Dino, low-slung and wicked-looking; the other car is a black 1971 Challenger. Lennox is normally no good with cars, despite working with the Autobots for more than half a decade, but his older brother had owned one just like it as his first car. Lennox would know it anywhere.

"Who the hell is that?"

Sideswipe comes to stand beside him and squats down, joints creaking and hissing. "He helped us out big time," he says quietly. "Totally saved Optimus' aft and made sure that Sam didn't die from hypothermia before Ratchet and 'Bee got there. Says he needs our help with something. He's not a Decepticon, far as we know, but he's not one of us either. Doesn't have a designation but he says to call him Harvester."

"Harvester?" Lennox repeats, his eyebrows lifting as the two new arrivals begin their transformations. "Well, that doesn't sound ominous at all."

Sideswipe only huffs a breath in agreement and straightens up. Lennox watches as Dino twists up into his bipedal form like a flower blooming and quickly backs away from the other transforming mech. The black car is more methodical, folding into and out of itself like an origami crane, seeming to grow before their eyes until the Challenger is no more and there is a large black dragon standing where it had once sat.

"Whoa!" Ewok says loudly from somewhere to the colonel's right, his exclamation echoed by that of several other NEST members. "That is fuckin' sweet!"

Lennox can't help but agree. He moves forward to get a better look, running his eyes over the scarred panels along the mech's side; over his hips and shoulders, places where his wheels and engine have been tucked up to accommodate his new anatomy; and down the long tail that's waving lazily over the heads of several gawking soldiers. He has a wedge-shaped head—snout long and rounded like a Draft horse—and has numerous curved protrusions jutting out from the top and back of his skull.

The mech is focusing on a point towards the back of the hangar where, Lennox sees upon looking, the Decepticon that Bumblebee had killed is laying in a smoking heap. Bringing his gaze back to Harvester, the colonel makes a sound in his throat and suddenly finds himself pinned with a pair of bright green eyes.

"Good day, Colonel William Lennox. I am pleased to see that you are well."

Lennox glances over his shoulder at Sideswipe, perplexed. The mech offers nothing but a shrug. "Do I know you?" Lennox asks when he looks back at the dragon.

Harvester doesn't really smile but there is subtle shifting of the panels around his eyes that lets Lennox know he's amused—the man has been around Optimus long enough to be aware of that little tell. "No, you do not."

"And you're not with the Autobots?"

"That is correct."

The colonel shifts on his feet. He's suddenly aware of the air hissing out of Sideswipe's vents and a glance at Dino lets him know that the red mech has quietly extended the blades on his forearms. To almost anyone else they may have looked as though they were simply standing around but Lennox can tell that the two of them haven't relaxed since they got into the Conference Bay and Harvester had transformed. Whatever the circumstances, they don't trust this mech.

"Then how do you know about me?" Lennox demands, grip tight on his gun.

"I know about you the same way that I know about Samuel Witwicky, Former Master Sergeant Robert Epps, Agent Seymour Simmons, and Director of National Intelligence Charlotte Mearing: I have been here for a very long time and I have been studying you."

There's a moment of stunned silence while Lennox absorbs this tidbit of information. It's one thing to assume that the Decepticons have personal knowledge of NEST members. It's something completely different to know for a fact that this rogue mech has been watching them without their awareness for what must be years now. It's unnerving, to say the least.

Sideswipe rolls forward so that he's standing just to the colonel's right and seems to unconsciously take a defensive stance over him. In the year since Ironhide had been killed, Lennox has noticed Sideswipe becoming more and more protective of him and his family, taking up the unofficial Guardianship capacity that the black truck had once held. He's never said anything to the Autobot directly but he's appreciative all the same. Sometimes it's nice to be watched over.

"Exactly how long is 'a very long time'?" the silver mech asks.

Harvester turns his head in Sideswipe's direction, his eyes going dim. Lennox recognizes this as a transformer's way of signaling to others that they are looking back into whatever counts as their memories. "Longer than you by far. However, that is a story that I wish to only tell once. If you do not mind waiting until the others arrive I would be most appreciative, Sideswipe."

Blue eyes twitch over to Dino for a fraction of a second before Sideswipe nods to the dragon. In the silence that follows, Lennox asks, "So, your name is Harvester?"

"As I told Optimus Prime, I have no designation," the black mech says, curving his long neck down so that he's eye-level with Lennox. The man can't help but feel that it's like being stared down by a large, particularly intelligent vulture. "I do, however, understand the human need to label everything around you. So, if you _must_, you may refer to me as Harvester."

"Why Harvester?"

Oddly enough it's Dino who answers, sounding as though he's quoting someone as he folds his arms over his chest. "Because that is what he is."

"Quite," Harvester murmurs, puffing out a quiet laugh that smells of burning crude oil. It stinks something awful but strikes a familiarity with Lennox that he can't quite figure out just yet. "Thank you, Mirage."

"Oh, _per favore_ don't call me that," Dino grumps. "Only the Prime is allowed to call me that to my faceplates."

"I apologize. I did not mean to offend." As Harvester lifts his head, Lennox hears the now-familiar creaking of damaged metal. He quickly searches and catches sight of a shoulder wound before the dragon mech turns to face Dino; he files it away to tell Ratchet in the off-chance that the medic hasn't seen it yet. "How should I refer to you?"

"Just Dino is fine. S'what everybody else calls me."

"Just-Dino?" The black mech's eyes close for a moment as he takes in the new information and processes it. "As you wish, Just-Dino."

Sideswipe snorts and the red mech shakes his head, looking affronted. "_Non_, _non_, _non, parti per i cervelli_. Not Just-Dino. My name is _Dino_. Just _Dino_."

Harvester looks bemused and Lennox has to smother a smile when he asks, "Dino-Just-Dino? What sort of a name is that?"

It's at this point that Sam and the rest of the Autobots inevitably show up. Bumblebee immediately drives up and puts himself between Lennox and Harvester, only giving Sam a moment to hop out before he begins to transform. As he comes out of his alt form, Lennox can only stare.

If he thought that Sideswipe was banged up, the Corvette has nothing on Bumblebee: the yellow mech has silver scratches all along his body where the paint has been scraped away and there's a panel missing from the top of his head. As Lennox watches him, blue energon slowly drips out of several gashes in his gut. Normally, he would assume that a Decepticon had done this type of damage but the way that 'Bee is glaring heatedly at Harvester tells Lennox otherwise.

The man glances at Sam, who looks pale and a little haggard but otherwise okay, and lifts one eyebrow in question. Sam just rolls his eyes. "There was a, uh—misunderstanding, let's say. Now they sort of hate each other."

Bumblebee makes a harsh sound in apparent agreement about the same time that Harvester says, "I do not hate your Guardian, Samuel Witwicky. He was, after all, only doing his job."

Despite this statement, however, both mechs continue to stare at each other with bright, narrowed eyes. Sam only shakes his head, looking at the two of them as if they are errant children. Well, Lennox can certainly identify with how he's feeling, what with Annabelle and Lucas being the ages that they are and constantly harping on one another.

There is a sudden blare of sirens and Lennox turns his head to see Ratchet's alt form coming through the bay door, emergency lights flashing. The medic doesn't even stop, just leads the eighteen-wheeler bearing Optimus through the haphazard obstacle course of debris and straight into the MedBay. Several soldiers and reemerged engineers stop what they're doing to stare at the short convoy as it passes them. From what Lennox can see of the Autobot leader, it's with good reason: half of his left leg is black and smoking, leaving the toxic smell of burning rubber in the trailer's wake, and it looks as though his arm has been nearly severed at the shoulder. Lennox thinks back a year's time to when Optimus had lost his right arm in battle with Sentinel and the painstaking hours of surgery Ratchet had needed to perform in order to reattach it.

As the two Autobots disappear into the relatively undamaged MedBay, Lennox sighs and says, "Well, I suppose we won't be seeing them for awhile."

Sideswipe makes a humming sound and scrapes one of his blades down the other in a shower of sparks. "Of course. Ratchet probably knocked him offline as soon as his backstrut hit the trailer. Prime was in bad shape, even though he didn't want to show it. Stubborn slag-head."

"Don't let him hear you say that," Dino advises shrewdly.

Sideswipe just shrugs. "It's not as if—"

"Would _someone_ please tell me _why_ we have just had a devastating invasion of our headquarters and our heavy lifters are just standing about, chatting, like this is some sort of goddamn _tea party_?"

Lennox sighs and squares his shoulders. _Well it was fun while it lasted_, he thinks and turns to face the incoming Director.

Mearing has, apparently, made her way up from one of the underground rooms and is currently bearing down on them, her ever-faithful assistant dogging her steps. "Would someone tell me that, please?" she demands.

Bumblebee, Dino, and Sideswipe are scrambling to assist in the cleanup before the woman can get more than halfway through her initial question. It would almost be funny how one small woman can put the fear of God into twenty-foot-tall alien robots if it wasn't also incredibly annoying. After all, even Lennox sometimes has difficulty getting the Autobots to do what he wants. He glances at the one remaining mech, who is watching Mearing's approach with wary eyes.

Lennox makes to intercept her. "Director Mearing, this—"

"Save it, Colonel," she spits and bypasses him. She doesn't stop until she's nearly at Harvester's feet. "Who are you?"

The dragon mech stares down at her for a long moment before looking over at Sam.

"Um, Director Mearing," the young man starts, moving forward to stand next to her, "this is Harvester. He's—"

"He one of those new Autobots that we're supposed to be expecting?"

She is, of course, referring to the transmission that Optimus had received a week previously, picked up from somewhere in the galaxy that was "unbelievably close" according to Ratchet. Optimus had told NEST members that the transmission had been sent out by an Autobot named Prowl, that he was headed towards Earth, and that he had three other Autobots in tow. NEST has been expecting them to show up any day now.

"Oh, um—uh, actually, no. No, he is not. He's—well he's not even an Autobot, technically. I sort of picked him up at the airport. Or he picked me up. Whichever you prefer . . ."

Mearing, of course, hones in on one thing in the rambling explication. "He's not an Autobot? So—what? He's a Decepticon?" She turns on Harvester who, Lennox notices, is looking extremely uncomfortable. "You're a Decepticon?"

"I am not—" the mech begins, only to cut himself off when Mearing takes a step towards him.

"Well, if you're not an Autobot, then you must be a Decepticon!" She whirls on Sam. "And you just let him drive into our headquarters when we are so severely compromised? How incompetent are you, Witwicky?"

As Sam struggles to come up with an answer to that, Lennox moves forward to stand across from him, Mearing bracketed between them. "Director Mearing, if you'll recall, Decepticons have been known to switch sides. Look at Wheelie and Brains—"

Sam gives Lennox a grateful look whenever Mearing turns her head in the Colonel's direction. "Yeah, and Jetfire," he adds, nodding vigorously. "You never met him but he was an old, _old_ Decepticon that wound up coming over to the Autobot's side."

Mearing frowns, staring up at the black mech. "So is that what happened? You were a Decepticon and now you're an Autobot? A defector?"

Harvester is shaking his head. "No, ma'am, I—"

"Don't call me ma'am. Do I look like a ma'am?"

Lennox watches as the panels and plates along the dragon's snout shift and bunch together, making it appear as though the mech is sneering. "Not particularly," he tells her through his teeth.

Somehow, Lennox is able to keep his smile in check; Sam, however, doesn't quite manage to turn his laughter into a cough, despite what looks like a valiant struggle. When Mearing sets her sharp eyes on him, he gestures towards the open bay door and mumbles something about coming down with a cold.

"According to Sideswipe," Lennox states, drawing the Director's attention away from the young man, "Harvester is neither Autobot nor Decepticon. Now, I don't have the whole story, but he apparently helped out Optimus and the others over in the Potomac Park battle. Right, Sam?"

"Uh, yeah. I mean, I didn't actually _see_ it, since I was kinda locked up inside of him at the time, but he apparently killed a Decepticon that was about to shoot Optimus. And then he made sure I didn't freeze to death—"

"And who vetted the decision that this made it okay for him to come back here, Witwicky?" Mearing asks, pushing her hair out of her face in agitation. "Was it you?"

"No, it wasn't me, okay?" Sam explodes, finally losing his patience with the irritable Director. Lennox hears the rest of the hangar go quiet, the sound of Sam's voice echoing harshly off the metal walls. "It was Optimus. You could ask him yourself, except—oh, yeah, that's right—he's in the MedBay being operated on because he almost _died_ today. And what was he doing, might you ask? He was protecting this planet from Decepticons. _Again_. Like he's been doing for the past six years and like he will continue to do until there are no more Decepticons left to kill or he himself is dead."

Lennox can't really tell by the view he has of the back of Mearing's head, but she doesn't seem terribly impressed by Sam's heated tirade. Under her gaze the young man visibly deflates. "Look," he says in a much calmer voice, "I trust Optimus' decision to bring him back here. Harvester asked for our help in something and promised us that he would assist us in return. Honestly, if we have a neutral party on the planet isn't it better that he's coming to us instead of going to the Decepticons?"

Mearing is quiet for a moment as she seems to think that through. She then turns back to Harvester and asks, "Exactly what sort of help will you be needing?" The question is colored with incredulousness, rather than curiosity or helpfulness, and Lennox watches the plates that serve as Harvester's eyebrows lower.

"That is something that I will be discussing with the Autobots and Samuel Witwicky." Any nervousness that the black mech had shown upon Mearing's arrival is gone as he all but snarls, "You are neither."

Lennox sees a muscle in Mearing's cheek twitch as she clenches her teeth. "Fine. But answer me this: why didn't you go to the Decepticons? If you _are_ a neutral party then you must have considered every option. Why the Autobots?"

Lennox can admit that he's curious about that, as well.

The panels along Harvester's nose clatter opened and closed as he snorts. "Aside from the fact, Director of National Intelligence Charlotte Mearing, that the Decepticons' forces have recently suffered a cataclysmic loss and are currently scurrying about like a Quadbot without its processor? Aside from the fact that the Autobot forces are growing while the Decepticons are dwindling? And aside from the fact that the Autobots have human backing from some of the most powerful nations on this planet?" The dragon mech shakes his great horned head. "I have witnessed the Decepticons' capacity for mercy, on this and other planets. The Autobots are, if nothing else, compassionate. _That_, Director of National Intelligence Charlotte Mearing, is why I chose them over the Decepticons."

Sam is staring up at Harvester with one eye squinted shut. "Do you think you'll be needing those? Mercy and compassion?"

The mech's fans kick up, creating a soft hum over the sound of humans and Autobots resuming their work in the background. "I fear that, by the end of the day, we shall see, Samuel Witwicky."

* * *

In the end, without Optimus' input to rely on, Mearing has to trust in Sam. She grants Harvester temporary asylum under a grueling list of conditions, including that he help to pull his weight around headquarters and that, once he's had the meeting with the Autobots, he relate to the humans exactly what was discussed.

She then points her finger at him. "And if I get one word from anyone that you are causing trouble of any kind, I guarantee you that there won't be pieces of you big enough to pick up without a pair of tweezers. Understand?"

Harvester's only response is to hiss at her, a sharp sound that reminds Sam of air brakes being let out.

Mearing just smirks. "Charming." And then she is gone, her assistant hastening to follow out the hangar door and into the cold afternoon sunlight. Lennox stands with them for several seconds before shaking his head and wandering away without a word. He heads downstairs, probably into the underground security and detection rooms if Sam has to guess.

Taking in a deep breath through his nose, he half-smiles up at the black mech. "You know, you really should work on not pissing her off. She kinda pays my salary. Well, in a roundabout sort of way, anyway."

"I must confess that I am . . . less than fond of her," Harvester admits, oddly diplomatic. His claws click against the concrete discordantly and his joints hiss and groan as he moves.

Sam barks a laugh. "Don't worry about it. Pretty much everyone feels that way about her. You get used to it, trust me."

"I cannot help but feel that you are mistaken, Samuel Witwicky, but I must defer to your judgment on the matter for now."

"You know you can call me Sam, right?" he asks, genuinely curious. It's something that's been niggling at him since he'd first been picked up by the rogue Challenger. "Everyone else does. I mean, I know it's gotta be annoying calling me by my full name all the time, so if you feel like you need my permission to just call me Sam, you've got it."

"You are quite incorrect in your assessment, Samuel Witwicky. I enjoy your name. But I will take your suggestion into consideration all the same, thank you." Harvester's warm voice is surprisingly earnest. Before Sam can think too closely about his admission, though, the mech lifts his head and looks around at what's left of the Conference Bay. "Is there something that I might do to, as Director of National Intelligence Charlotte Mearing put it, pull my weight?"

This earns a grin from Sam. "Yeah, sure. Come on, let's go find Peters or Dunn," he says, knocking his fist against Harvester's wrist with a soft _ping_. "They'll have something for you to do, I'm sure."

Gabriel Peters, as is turns out, is downstairs with Lennox in Security Room B. He and a hoard of electricians are trying to get NEST's defenses back up in the off chance that lightning should strike twice in one day. Though something of a techie, Sam will never be on the same level as these guys, so he leaves them to it and heads back upstairs. He finds Dunn outside amongst the military vehicles and ambulances, speaking with a group of several other technicians and a few mechanics. They're all gesturing up at the roof of the Health and Human Services building.

"Hey, Dunn," Sam calls, making sure that Harvester is following him before he heads over to the group of chattering techies. "You got a sec?"

Ernest Dunn is a lot like the color that he shares his surname with—from his hair to his clothes to his disposition, the man is completely unremarkable. Sam usually doesn't like to deal with him just because he tends to be completely insufferable despite having the personality of a computer-savvy tree stump.

At Sam's shout, he visibly sighs before turning to face the approaching man. "What?"

"This is Harvester," Sam starts without preamble. He juts a thumb over his shoulder and watches as Dunn's eyes widen comically at the sight of the black dragon that's now undoubtedly standing just behind Sam. "We're looking for something for him to do. You guys need a mech for anything?"

Dunn and the others stare up at Harvester for several stunned seconds, their breath puffing out of them in misty clouds. Finally, one of them—a mechanic that Sam knows only by sight—seems to shake himself. He gives Dunn a sharp elbow to the side and asks, "We could use some help with the comm. array, couldn't we?"

Dunn blinks and glances at him. After a quick moment of thought he murmurs, "Yeah, I guess we could." He chews on his thin bottom lip, then looks back at Sam. "Yeah, send it up to the roof. We can use it to move the dishes around, if nothing else." He then turns his back on Sam and Harvester once again, ignoring the two of them in favor of talking to the other technicians. The mechanic gives Sam a sympathetic look before he too redirects his attention to taking care of other matters.

As they are left to their own devices, Sam smirks and twists around to look up at his companion. The mech's face is carefully blank as he watches the pack of humans, but Sam has been around the Autobots long enough to notice the subtle twitching of vents and transformation cogs. "Hey, don't let it bother you, okay? Dunn is a complete dickhead, but—"

"But I will get used to it?" Harvester asks impassively, one eyebrow raised.

Sam chuckles lightly, shoving his freezing hands down into his jacket pockets. The action pulls at his clothes, dislodging his shirt collar that had been cemented to the back of his neck by spark gel. "No, you never get used to him," he admits with a grimace. "He stays annoying. I was gonna suggest that you could push him off the roof." Harvester makes a thoughtful sound and Sam quickly retracts that statement. "Hey-hey, that was a joke! Please, please don't push anyone off the roof! Mearing would never let me hear the end of it if you did!"

"Do not worry, Samuel Witwicky. I have no real intention of killing anyone else today."

"Well that's comforting, I guess. Look, I'm gonna go grab a quick shower to get this shit off of me. Go up to the roof and just do anything that they ask you to, the best you can. I'll call you whenever Ratchet says Optimus is ready to wake up. If you have any trouble, just call one of the Autobots over a comm. line. Sound good?"

Harvester just rolls his shoulders and makes his way towards the side of the building through the myriad of parked vehicles, equipment, and humans. Usually when the Autobots need to get to the roof they take the special freight elevator that NEST had built for them but the dragon mech simply scales the wall like a gecko, easily climbing up the few scant stories to reach the top. Sam watches his tail disappear over the ledge and then heads back inside through the bay door. He passes Bumblebee on the way to his quarters and taps his knuckles against the mech's knee. "You okay, 'Bee?"

In response, Bumblebee says nothing, seemingly focused on the work that he's doing.

Sam sighs in irritation. Once the Camaro had found out that Sam had willingly climbed into a strange car he'd shut down all communication with the young man, turning off his radio and throttling his engine up so that Sam could barely hear himself think. "Still giving me the silent treatment?" he asks, already knowing what the answer will be.

As expected, Bumblebee doesn't even bother to look at him.

Aggravation pours through Sam's veins. In retribution, he quickly slips his hand through a gap in the metal at Bumblebee's elbow and gives a bundle of neural wires that he finds there a savage pinch—the Autobot equivalent of hitting their funny bone. Bumblebee's hand spasms and the damaged equipment he's holding falls to the ground with a clatter. Rounding on his charge, his voice box forces out a startled, "_Sam!_"

"Look," Sam spits, "I understand that you were scared for me and I'm not trying to diminish that because you're my Guardian and you're supposed to protect me, but I keep telling you that Harvester was helping me—"

Bumblebee starts gesticulating madly in the direction that Harvester had gone, talking in his whirring, chirruping voice—most of it is unintelligible but Sam manages to catch one word out of ten, none of them very nice. He just folds his arms and squints at Bumblebee, an idea slowly taking root as to what's going on.

"Are you jealous?"

Bumblebee stutters into silence. When Sam smirks knowingly, he makes a sound like an engine trying to turn over and his radio squawks out an indignant, "_No, I'm not!_"

Contrary to his words, however, the mech has stood up and is now shifting guiltily back and forth on his huge feet. Sam feels most of his frustration seep out of him at the sight. Jealousy is something that he can understand, after all. "It's all right, you know," he tries to reassure Bumblebee. "No matter what happens, you'll always be my car. Nothing can change that."

But Bumblebee is shaking his head, his features pinched in frustration. "_It isn't only that_," his radio says and then flips channels for a second. "_I don't trust him_. _Dude's hiding something. I can feel it and if you weren't Robo-Sam_, _you'd feel it too__."_

The young man stands still for a moment and considers everything that he knows about his Guardian—how long he's known and depended on Bumblebee, who'd defended him against Barricade back before he'd even known what an Autobot or a Decepticon was; how the mech had been taken by Sector Seven because he'd been protecting Sam; how he'd lived in his parents' cramped garage for two years because he'd wanted to be close to him. Sam lets all of that knowledge wash through him and eventually gives the mech a short nod. "Okay, 'Bee. I trust in Optimus but I trust in you, too. Watch Harvester for now and if he does anything suspicious—"

"_I'll take him apart_," his radio affirms as he strikes one fist against the palm of his other hand in a clang of metal.

Sam nods sharply. "Good," he says truthfully, letting his stance relax. Bumblebee crouches down before him and tilts his head forward. Sam automatically glances up at the spot where Harvester had ripped a panel loose: the wiring and circuitry underneath look oddly delicate glistening in the light and Sam hopes that Ratchet will be able to fix it. Instead of saying anything, though, he just reaches up and takes ahold of the circular piece of metal on Bumblebee's chin. "We okay?"

Bumblebee's eyes shift away but he nods and makes a soothing whine.

"Good." Sam gently pats the spot he was just holding and then steps back. "I'm gonna grab a shower while Optimus is still in surgery, then I'll be back out to help. See you in a few, 'Bee."

At his Guardian's nod, Sam turns and begins picking his way through the debris towards the more residential areas of NEST headquarters, his shower and a fresh change of clothes calling out to him.

* * *

A light snow has begun to fall and the sun has sunk down below the line of buildings in the west before Ratchet finally emerges from the MedBay, rubbing at the piece of metal between his eyes. It takes the humans still scurrying around some time to notice him, but Sideswipe catches sight of him straight away. "Ratchet," he calls, dropping what he's doing and rolling towards him, "how is he?"

At his shout, Dino, Sam, and Lennox come to attention and make their way over, as well; Bumblebee and Harvester are still up on the roof. The former had gone up some hours ago, ostensibly to help out the technicians working on the comm. array, but Sam knows it's mainly to keep an eye on the newest mech at headquarters. He wonders how the two of them are fairing.

Ratchet sighs heavily and drops his hand. "He's stable, thank Primus." The gathered mechs and humans release a collective breath at these words. Optimus has weathered far worse than this, yes, but they're all too aware that his lucky streak could change at any moment and he might be taken from them again. It's always a relief to hear Ratchet say that he's going to be okay. "I've reattached his arm and repaired the damage to his leg and hip. I'm keeping him in forced recharge for now, giving the nanites time to work out things on a molecular level while he's not aware of it. I'll bring him back online in a couple of hours. That should give me enough time to—" He stops and looks around at them as if for the first time. "Where are Bumblebee and the Quadbot?"

Sam furrows his brows, realizing that it's not the first time he's heard that word this evening. "Uh, 'Bee is up on the roof. Quadbot?"

"A Quadbot," says a warm voice from behind him, making him jump, "is a word that refers to any mech or femme that is not a Bipedal." The small group turns as one to find Harvester and Bumblebee coming towards them at a trot. The Autobot is trailing slightly behind the black mech and is watching him warily as they both approach. Sam realizes that either Dino or Sideswipe must have called them on the comm. link and let them know that Ratchet was out of the MedBay. "Simply put, while you and the Autobots walk around on two legs, we walk around on more than that."

"Hm. All right."

Ratchet immediately points a finger at Bumblebee as he comes to stand between Sam and Sideswipe. "You're next on the berth, 'Bee. We'll get your head and fuel lines sorted out."

Bumblebee's only response is to slump down and shuffle past Ratchet through the MedBay doors, his engine whining pitifully. Sam ducks his head to hide a grin—he's not sure if it's a result of the debacle in Mission City or if it had happened long before then, but it's become clear over the past several years that Bumblebee absolutely detests the MedBay. Having watched the medic work, Sam can't really say he blames him.

Ratchet eyes the yellow mech until he's through the bay doors, then turns on Harvester. "After him, I'll deal with your shoulder."

"Your concern is much appreciated, Ratchet, but unneeded. My shoulder is perfectly fine, thank you."

Sam takes a look at said shoulder and is surprised to find that, though he'd hardly call it _perfectly_ _fine_, it's actually not as bad as he'd originally thought it was. The metal is warped and the neural lines beneath are exposed, but none of them appear broken or sparking. If Sam hadn't seen it with his own eyes he wouldn't believe that the damage had been done by 'Bee's cannon. Ratchet is apparently of the same mind, for he stalks over to get a better look at the wound. "May I?" he inquires as he draws closer, his mouth twisting into a grimace.

Sam isn't used to Ratchet asking for consent before he manhandles mechs that are under his care. He realizes, however, that these aren't normal circumstances: Harvester may very well try to rip his face off should the medic touch him without permission.

The black mech seems to consider Ratchet's request for a minute before silently tilting his head away to give him better access to the wound. Ratchet prods at the torn metal with careful fingers, eventually folding the distorted panels back into place and quickly stepping away.

"It's not as bad as I thought," he states as he turns in the direction of his MedBay. "Your nanites should take care of the rest if you don't want to weld it."

Harvester nods shortly and tells Ratchet's retreating back, "As I said: unneeded."

As the medical officer disappears through the MedBay door, Sam tilts his head back to look up at the dragon mech. "No need to get pissy with him. He was just trying to help you."

"I do understand a medic's obsessive need to look after everyone, but I have been in this body for a long while now. I know it better than anyone else and therefore knew that I required no assistance, which I _did_ tell him." He rolls his shoulders, the vents along his sides opening and shutting with a _clang_, and Sam suddenly gets a whiff of burnt copper and plastic. He coughs, more out of alarm than anything.

"Well, yeah, but—um, I mean, are you sure you're okay? I'm just asking because . . . you smell kinda like my grandfather's pickup when it'd been running without any oil."

Sideswipe grins as Harvester's brow plates lower in confusion. "Kid's sayin' you stink," he tells the black mech and Sam wants to punch him in the mouth.

"I was _not_ saying that!" Sam insists. "I just—"

It's at this moment that Lennox suddenly steps forward, saving Sam the trouble of trying to explain to Harvester exactly _what_ he'd been trying to say. "Hey, hold on a second," he calls out as though he's just had some sort of epiphany. He then turns toward Sam and lowers his voice. "Look, I didn't know Jetfire for all that long before he died, so I don't know if . . ." He pauses and huffs out a breath. "After Optimus took his parts, the Big Man stunk like old oil until Ratchet put him to rights." Lennox looks up at Harvester. "Pretty much exactly how you smell. No offense."

"None taken, I assure you."

Glancing back at Sam, Lennox asks, "Is there any reason that Jetfire would have smelled like that other than him being in stasis for a couple of decades?" As the transformers shift above them in the quiet that follows that question, Sam tries to think back to Egypt—tries to remember what Jetfire had said to them about . . .

"_. . . Energon, the lifeblood of our race. Without it, we'll all perish, oxidize and rust—like my wretched self! Do you have any idea what it's like to slowly fall apart and die?"_

Sam glances up at Harvester sharply. "Is there any way you could be leaking energon?"

"Why do you ask, Samuel Witwicky?" the dragon hedges, the vents along his snout twitching.

"See, Jetfire was this old Seeker we met a few years back. He was falling apart because he was so low on energon—in fact, I think the only reason that he was still on his feet for Egypt was because of the shard of the All Spark that brought him out of stasis."

"Yeah," Lennox adds, gesturing towards Dino and Sideswipe. "When Ewok picked you three up with the detector, he almost didn't see you, Harvester, because your energon level was so low."

Sam hears the two Autobots standing behind him shift and assumes that they are looking at one another in surprise. He can't really blame them: for a mech to nearly not show up on the energon detectors that NEST has out now is unheard of.

"What're your tanks at?" Sideswipe asks sharply, rolling forward.

Harvester's eyes swivel over to him as he approaches and whatever Sideswipe sees there is enough to stop him in his tracks. "My tanks are at a perfectly acceptable level for me, thank you."

Sideswipe huffs in irritation. "Look man, you can cool it with the tough guy act. Every mech needs energon and if you're hungry—"

"My tanks," Harvester repeats in a low growl, "are at a perfectly acceptable level for me, _thank you_."

Sam feels a shudder run down the length of his spine. The dragon's warm voice has dropped by several degrees and, beside him, Lennox tenses imperceptibly. The men's eyes flick back and forth between the Autobot and the Quadbot, feeling the hostility in the hangar ratchet up as the two of them continue to stare at one another.

It's Sideswipe that finally relents. He rolls back several steps, hands thrown out in a negligent shrug. "It's fine," he says with forced nonchalance. "But if your tanks ever get down to a level that you feel is _not_ perfectly acceptable, you should know that we've got energon here."

Dino nods in agreement. "It's not the best—refined from human fossil fuels. But it gets the job done."

"Yeah. Anyway, you're welcome to it."

Harvester looks between the two Autobot warriors and nods slightly, his shoulders slowly relaxing. "Your generosity is much appreciated."

Sideswipe just rolls his shoulders, unconcerned with the mech's gratitude, and slides past him to go back to work. Dino stays where he's at for a little longer, quietly watching the Quadbot, before he too returns to helping the technicians that are still hanging around in the Conference Bay. Not seeming to know what else to do, Harvester retreats out the bay door from whence he came. Seconds later, Sam hears the familiar sound of metal against metal as the dragon mech drags himself back up the outer wall and onto the roof.

Sam hears a muted, "Well, shit," and when he looks at Lennox the man is frowning in Sideswipe's direction, clearly bemused.

"Don't I know it," he agrees with the statement in general. Settling his hands against his hips, Sam looks down at the floor and sighs. "'Bee doesn't trust him."

"I don't think any of them do. Except maybe Optimus."

"Optimus doesn't even trust himself after the whole Sentinel thing, let alone a strange mech. No, Harvester said that something's coming, so I think that Optimus is just hedging his bets, y'know? I mean—"

"Wait, wait," Lennox says quickly, holding out one hand at chest level. His eyes are suddenly troubled and Sam realizes that, up until this point, Lennox must have heard nothing about what Harvester had said to the Autobots back on the golf course. "He told you guys that something is coming? What kind of _something_?"

"He wouldn't explain it to us. But he says that it's worse than Decepticons, whatever it is."

The colonel looks extraordinarily nervous at these words. "Well, that's not good."

"Yeah. I guess we'll find out more whenever Optimus wakes up. Until then, the Autobots'll keep an eye on him."

Lennox glances the way that the Quadbot went. "It's not really Harvester I'm worried about now." Sam has nothing to add to that and, eventually, Lennox wanders away in the direction of the residential quarters, presumably to get some food and a shower.

Almost one hour later, Bumblebee finds Sam exactly where Lennox left him. Lost in thought and half-asleep, the young man jumps whenever the mech amusedly asks, "_Tired . . . Sam?_"

"Course not," Sam answers around a yawn. "Just thinking is all."

Bumblebee rolls his eyes. "_C'mon now, you're sleepin' on your feet like a horse_," his radio mumbles and he presses a finger against Sam's back in an effort to move the exhausted young man. He remains stubbornly stationary.

"M'not. Swear."

However, when Bumblebee simply picks him up and begins carrying him, Sam can't really find the energy to protest being manhandled. He waves a hand in the direction of the MedBay. "Just wake me up whenever Ratchet calls, yeah?"

Bumblebee barely manages to give a chirrup in the affirmative before Sam is out like a light.

* * *

Optimus' optics wink back online to find Ratchet standing over him, staring down at him steadily. "How do you feel, Prime?"

The Autobot leader turns his scans inward, checking off the issues that are scrolling down his HUD. There are fresh welds around his shoulder port, his protoform expertly reconnected. He brings his hand up and flexes his fingers, checking his dexterity and making sure there are no clogs in his neural lines. There's some stiffness but Optimus has come to expect that and dismisses the notification he gets.

Moving his diagnostic scans down to his leg, he can sense all sorts of new pistons and transformation cogs before he even looks. Beneath the shiny black tires and polished steel that greet his optics, Optimus can sense a strut deep ache in his thigh. It tells him that Ratchet has had to remove the damaged protoform there and it is currently repairing itself—a painful process, something that could take several days at the very least, but not a procedure that Optimus is wholly unaccustomed to, unfortunately. The large mech pushes aside the concern and begins transferring integration codes for his new parts into his processor, trying to ensure that his body won't simply reject them somewhere down the road.

Basic scans completed and satisfied with the results, Optimus focuses on Ratchet once again. "Better than I was. How long was I offline?"

"A little over a joor by my chronometer," the medic tells him, helping Optimus when the mech tries to sit up on the berth. His leg is numb and when he digs around in his processor he finds Ratchet's medical glyphs there, suppressing the pain far more effectively than he could hope to on his own.

"A joor?" he asks, suddenly weary beyond reason. He leans forward and rests his helm in both hands.

Ratchet is one of only three mechs that he would allow himself to do this in front of—the other two being Prowl, who is currently off-planet . . . and Ironhide. The medic has already seen Optimus at his very worst; he will think no less of the Prime for a nanoklik of respite before the slag undoubtedly hits the fans with this whole Harvester business.

Venting a soft sigh of frustration, Optimus straightens. "Report on the others." He rolls his new shoulder, loosening the lines there and testing out the range of motion. Feeling a drag, he plugs in a command for a release of lubricant into the port for smoother motility.

Ratchet's field touches against his in aggravation, but he answers nonetheless. "Bumblebee is back in working order. I reattached the panel that I picked up and set his busted energon lines to rights. Didn't take all that long. He's with Sam now, who is tired but otherwise quite all right thanks to the Quadbot. Sideswipe and Dino were relatively undamaged and needed no medical treatment."

"And what about Harvester?" Optimus asks, releasing the energon blade on his left arm. A warning pops up on his HUD at this and he makes a note to get some fresh energon into his tanks just as soon as he's had a meeting with the black mech and the other Autobots.

Ratchet is silent for a few kliks and Optimus twists his helm to look at him. "I saw him take a direct hit from Bumblebee's cannon at point-blank range, yet there was almost no damage done to his shoulder. It's possible that he had armor of some kind that protected him from the blast . . ."

"But it's unlikely," Optimus finishes for him. "What are the options, then?"

"A field disrupter is the only thing that I can think of. It would have knocked Bumblebee's aim off enough to limit damage and it would go a little way to explaining why Harvester's own field is so completely slagged." Ratchet grits his dente suddenly. "I had to manually check his shoulder earlier and, Primus, being so close to him made my spark physically hurt. I have never felt anything like that before, Optimus. Never. There is something _wrong_ with that mech."

Optimus' vents hum softly in agreement but he pushes Ratchet's observations aside. "Has he mentioned any more about what he said was coming? What he needs our help with?"

"Considering that I've been in the MedBay for the past joor taking care of some _idiot_," he says with a pointed look and Optimus benevolently chooses to ignore the insubordination lacing the comment, "I haven't heard all that much. But when I went out there to check on Sideswipe and Dino they told me that the Quadbot had had a long conversation with Mearing and Lennox. Mearing, apparently, looked none too pleased when she left but she has him under temporary asylum here."

"And what does Lennox say?"

"Lennox will trust whatever Sam says and Sam will trust whatever you say," he states, hands on his hips. "So it's really all down to you, Prime."

Optimus considers this, pressing his fingers against his shuttered optics. Finally, when he feels Ratchet's concerned field against his, he sits up and tells the medic, "Call them in. All the Autobots, Harvester, and Sam. If Lennox is still here, I want him in on this meeting, too. Let's find out what sort of slag-storm we've gotten ourselves involved with this time." Ratchet nods and presses a hand against one of his audials to signal that he's contacting the others.

While he does this, Optimus sits on the berth and runs more in-depth diagnostics on his new parts to be sure they're all in working order. When the scans come back showing the components fully integrated into his systems and running at nearly ninety percent efficiency, he's unsurprised—Ratchet is, if anything, a competent medic. Optimus leafs through the results, flagging any concerns he finds, until he feels a field press against his own.

Looking up, he finds Ratchet before him, the other three Autobots standing in a shuffling semi-circle behind the green mech. Sam is near Bumblebee's feet, rubbing at his eyes with both hands as though he's just woken up; next to Sideswipe, Lennox is subtly stretching out his neck and back. Harvester is standing in the doorway to the Conference Bay. He is watching the assembled group with a carefully neutral expression but his field crackles around him like black lightning.

Optimus slowly swivels his optics away from the mech and back towards the small collection of Autobots. Despite their relaxed stances, he can sense the strut-deep anxiety woven into each of their fields, throttling up the tension in the room. He can't say that he is completely unaffected by it.

His weariness must show in his face because Ratchet's voice suddenly comes over a private comm. link. _:Are you sure that you're ready for this, Prime? I can send them away if you'd prefer to put this off until tomorrow. They would understand.:_

Tempting as the offer is, Optimus shakes his helm. _:It's too late to back out now. Let's just get this over with.:_

Frowning, the medic backs away to join the rough circle of mechs and humans currently surrounding his patient's berth. Optimus returns his bright optics to Harvester, pushing aside everything else and focusing solely on the Quadbot. "I think it's time for you to tell us what you want from us, Harvester."

The dragon mech nods and comes further into the MedBay, positioning himself near Sam and Bumblebee in the small circle. Even without the disgusted field pulse from his young lieutenant, Optimus can tell that Bumblebee is extremely uncomfortable with the Quadbot's proximity to him. He doesn't move away, though, and the Prime can't help but admire his stubbornness.

Sitting back on his haunches with a groan of hot metal, Harvester begins by looking directly at Optimus and requesting, "Tell me what you know of the Panzor Rebellion."


	4. In the Clutches of My Doubt

**Chapter 4: In the Clutches of My Doubt**

Optimus narrows his optics at the black mech. "The Panzor Rebellion? Why should I do that?"

"Because I can tell you about what I am and I can tell you about the enemy you will soon face; however, to truly understand what is coming, Optimus Prime, you and your Autobots must know about our kinds' shared pasts and where they diverge. The Panzor Rebellion is where we should begin."

From where he's sitting next to Ratchet, Optimus feels the medic's field pulse with curiosity at this statement. "What do you mean by 'shared pasts'? Aren't you Cybertronian?"

"Only in the broadest of definitions," Harvester answers evasively, looking around the circle at the other mechs. "But we will come to that later. For now, Optimus Prime, I would like to hear what you know about the Panzor Rebellion, if you would."

Optimus stares at the mech intently, his processor whirring. He inputs the words 'panzor' and 'rebellion' into his search engine, leafing through whatever information gets booted up out of the backlog of data that he has stored in his CPU—it is woefully inadequate. Plenty of logs pop up that include 'rebellion' but only a few dozen have the name Panzor attached to them. Optimus vents a harsh sigh. "I must admit that I know very little about it, even with the knowledge that the Matrix has provided me."

"Just tell me what you do know," Harvester urges, not unkindly. If he's surprised or intrigued at the mention of the Matrix of Leadership, he hides it very well. Somehow, though, Optimus doubts that the black mech has no knowledge of what had taken place in Egypt four Earth years previously.

"All that I know is that the Panzor Rebellion was the start of the first ever civil war on Cybertron."

From the neutral expression on Harvester's face, Optimus deduces that this is not exactly news to him; to the other occupants of the room, however, this information seems to be more of a revelation. Dino makes a startled exclamation in Italian and Sideswipe's field flares white-hot. "I thought that the first civil war took place solely between the Primes. How long have you known about this, Optimus?"

"Not until recently," the huge mech admits, optics lowering to his hands where he has them clasped in his lap, "when the knowledge of the AllSpark was transferred through Sam and into the Matrix of Leadership. In the moment when he merged it with my spark, that vast knowledge and history became accessible to me."

Optimus dims his optics and begins scrolling through the short compilation of logs that he has up on his HUD, milking them for whatever information they have on the Panzor Rebellion. "Millions of vorns ago—several millennia after Cybertron's inception—a Quadbot by the name of Panzor lead a revolt against the Bipedal mechs. It was a short but bloody affair: whole families lost, generations wiped out. In the end, the Bipedals were able to overpower the Quadbot rebels and the Primes banished them to the far reaches of space." He looks up at the black dragon. "It is unknown what happened to them."

And now everyone is staring at Harvester. There's no field pulse to indicate any agitation in the black mech but even from across the room Optimus's audials are picking up his gears grinding together and transformation cogs ticking back and forth. Sam coughs and asks Optimus, "So, why'd Panzor lead this rebellion?"

"Unknown," is Optimus's reply, so Sam looks up at Harvester.

"Do you know?"

Without preamble Harvester states, "Panzor lead the revolt against the Bipedals because the Quadbots of Cybertron were being repressed and used as little more than a slave labor force. Back in that time, Bipedals saw Quadbots as little better than scrap metal. Despite being sentient beings and having intelligence that was on par with the Bipedals, to them a Quadbot's only value was in the fact that they were load-bearers and could do the heavy lifting. They were given the most dangerous and demeaning of jobs simply because they weren't worth anything more than the metal with which they were made. And once they were too old or too worn down to work any longer, they were disposed of."

There is chilly silence amongst the group as they take in the last of Harvester's words. Optimus shifts on the berth. He has all of the history of Cybertron in his processor and hundreds of thousands of vorns' worth of experiences, but he still cannot imagine the frustration and fear that those Quadbots must have lived with on a daily basis. Even though it is billions of ano-cycles in the past—a war that he could not possibly have fought—his spark goes out to those oppressed mechs.

Sam suddenly steps away from his Guardian's feet. "The seven Original Primes were alive then, weren't they? Didn't they do anything to help the Quadbots?"

Harvester shutters his optics in a blink and looks down at Sam with lowered brow-plates. "Why would they have done anything?"

"Well, that's kinda what Primes do, isn't it? Help people."

The bud of warm appreciation that blooms in Optimus's chassis at Sam's words isn't quite enough to block out the sickening feeling of Harvester's field briefly darkening and pulsating around him. Although Sam is oblivious to this agitated field burst, Optimus sees as Bumblebee gives an almighty flinch and finally sidesteps away from the mech.

"To Bipedals, Quadbots were_ not_ people," Harvester explains. Despite the foulness of his field still swirling around him, his voice is calm, if not a little bitter. "And the Primes, you will note, were Bipedals as well."

The young man goes quiet as he absorbs this, his eyes flickering down and away. Optimus can understand his reticence. Most of what Sam knows about Primes is built off of what he knows about Optimus himself, who had literally given up his life in order to save one soul in danger. Sam shakes his head, frustrated. "But that doesn't make any sense. Six of the Original Primes sacrificed themselves to protect the human race from being wiped out by The Fallen. How could they do something like that if they wouldn't even help the Quadbots, who were members of their own species?"

Harvester's face is impassive but Optimus feels as his field thrums with annoyance at Sam's question. In response to this, the other Autobots visibly bristle: Sideswipe flares his armor imperceptibly and Bumblebee's cannon warms where it rests in his forearm. Optimus throws out authoritative and persuasive glyphs to calm his affronted soldiers just as Harvester's own field levels out once again. He lowers his head to the floor to be eye-level with Sam. Optimus can only describe the look on his face as one of regret.

"Do not mistake me, Samuel Witwicky." His voice is so soft that Optimus has to adjust his audials in order to hear him properly. "The Primes were incredibly noble and generous when it came to other planets and the species that inhabited them; however, in their optics, just one human life held more value than all of the Quadbots on Cybertron combined. And that was simply because your race happens to walk around on two legs instead of four or six. It is a shame but it was the school of thought amongst all Bipedals at the time, Primes included."

As Harvester raises his head back up, Optimus keeps his optics on Sam. The young man looks crestfallen and a quick scan tells the Autobot leader that his heart is pounding and his temperature has risen by several degrees. Optimus, who knows what the dragon mech is saying to be true, can only imagine what Sam is thinking about.

After a microbreem, Sam swallows and lifts his head. "So, tell us about this revolt," he says gruffly and shuffles back to lean against Bumblebee's ankle.

Harvester watches Sam until he settles, green optics intent upon the young man's face, and then gives a quick nod. "Of course, Samuel Witwicky." He then straightens and redirects his attention to the other mechs in the MedBay, taking up his narrative as if he'd never stopped. "This subjugation of the Quadbots by the Bipedals went on for thousands of vorns. They knew, deep in their processors, that what was being done to them was wrong and unfair; however, when you are constantly belittled and beaten down as they were being, you come to expect it and even accept it as what should be happening to you. That is how it was and that is how it would have continued if not for the unexpected attack on a young Quadbot named Graoull."

Lennox steps out from where he's standing between Sideswipe's feet. "Growl?"

"_Graoull_, Colonel William Lennox," Harvester corrects, taking time to enunciate all of the vowels in the name. Optimus is busy filtering 'Graoull' through his search engine and, though several results come back matching it, only one of them is a Quadbot with the name Panzor cross-referenced in the log. He selects that file to study, putting it up on his HUD as Harvester continues with his tale.

"It was a tragedy. The youngling was brutalized by a group of Bipedals—" Optimus can see from the data he's currently scrolling through and the look on Harvester's face, that what had happened to Graoull was so much worse than merely _brutalized_. "—and dumped in a drainage ditch once they were done with him. When he was discovered he was still clinging to life but his injuries proved too extensive for him to survive. He passed away sometime the next cycle. There was nothing that could have been done to save him."

When Harvester pauses, Optimus pushes aside the file on Graoull and takes a nanoklik to look around at the other mechs in the room: Mirage, Bumblebee, and Sideswipe are all staring at the floor with dim optics, their fields tucked close to them in an effort comfort themselves. Outwardly, Ratchet appears perfectly calm but Optimus doesn't need to feel his field crackling to tell him that the story has deeply upset the medic. The Prime can't really blame him. Any loss of life is difficult for them to think about, especially nowadays when their race is so close to going extinct; however, the thought of a youngling being raped, tortured, and left to die is almost more than their processors can bear.

Seemingly unaware of the distress he's caused in the mechs around him, Harvester vents a deep breath and continues. "The Bipedals that initiated the attack were never reprimanded and, even though it was not the first time that this had happened, it was a particularly vicious and degrading attack on a mech that was barely out of sparkhood. The Quadbot community never forgot about it. The resentment and hatred towards their oppressors merely compounded until, one day when the Primes were off-planet harvesting a star, Graoull's Sire decided that he had had enough."

Sam works it out on his own very quickly. "Panzor? Panzor was his—what?—his father?"

"That would be the human equivalent, yes. In mech terms, Panzor is referred to as Graoull's Sire."

"Hold on a sec," Lennox calls out. He looks equal parts intrigued and deeply uncomfortable at the revelation he's just had. "I'm just not—you guys can . . . You guys can have kids?"

Optimus glances around the circle at the other Autobots before answering. "Not any longer. The first generations of transformers could produce offspring known as sparklings—a youngling that is created by merging two sparks together and that is carried around within the chassis of one of its Creators. Sometime between the first generations and our own, transformers lost the ability to have sparklings. With the All Spark, we were able to produce clone-like young called hatchlings, but . . ."

When he pauses, Sideswipe takes over. "But we're pretty sure it's nothing like having sparklings."

"With the All Spark gone," Ratchet adds, "we have no way of creating new transformers. At least, as far as we know."

Lennox looks between them for a nanoklik before giving a somewhat reluctant nod. Sam turns back to Harvester. "Okay. So, what happened with Panzor?"

"Well, it is as Optimus Prime so succinctly described: he led a large group of Quadbots in an effort to overthrow the Bipedals. I believe that his initial desire was merely to track down the group that had caused the death of his son and seek retribution. However, once that goal had been accomplished, he continued amassing Quadbot rebels and they proceeded to vent their frustrations on all Bipedals. You see, Panzor's own Sire had downloaded military programming through less than scrupulous means and, upon his creation, Panzor had acquired that knowledge. He was one of the few Quadbots to have that type of programming at the time. As such, he was able to formulate tactics and direct troops with an efficiency that could not be matched amongst the Quadbots' ranks—plus, he had the incentive of pure hatred towards the Bipedals driving him forward.

"And that was enough for a time. Even though they were vastly outnumbered, had no military programming to speak of, and were generally much smaller than any of the Bipedals, the rebel Quadbots decimated their ranks. That is until the Primes realized what was occurring and returned to Cybertron. Even the finest of Panzor's tactics could not stand up against their power and the rebellion was quickly put an end to."

"And then—what?" Lennox asks, holding his hands up in a gesture that Optimus has come to associate with human confusion. "The Primes just sent them away?"

Harvester nods his helm once, a sharp little movement that forewarns a black field pulse from the mech. When he speaks, it is through clenched dente. "Indeed. The Primes, in their _infinite_ wisdom, saw fit to pack over a thousand bodies into a small ship with low fuel and hardly any supplies, and jettison them out into an unknown region of space. I can only imagine that they felt it was a fitting warning to the few Quadbots that remained on Cybertron once the rebellion was over: _Behold our power. Your friends and family have failed to stop us and so would you if you attempted it. Do not cross us as they did._"

When Harvester comes to a pause in the increasingly distressing narrative, Optimus takes a moment to examine his feelings on this matter. As a Prime he can't, with good conscience, justify the forced servitude or the torture of any sentient being; however, their ways of thinking were before his time. If he had been a Prime back then, would he have allowed his brothers to send those Quadbots off to slowly perish? He hopes that he would not but if he measures it by today's standards: If it would protect Earth, would he put one thousand Decepticons onto a ship and blast them out into empty space with no energon and no way to pilot?

_Of course I would. Without a doubt._

"So what happened to them?" asks Sideswipe, interrupting Optimus's rather grim line of thought. Harvester turns to regard the silver mech and, for the first time since he'd met him earlier that day, Optimus sees an emotion on his face besides neutrality or vague annoyance: incredulity.

"Surely, Sideswipe, you are not so dense as to ask me that question? One thousand volatile Quadbots were locked aboard a ship with a limited supply of energon and no medical stores—what do you believe happened to them? They massacred one another."

Sideswipe frowns. Optimus can feel embarrassment and annoyance lancing through his field and does his best to soothe the Warrior with his own before the mech's temper gets the better of him. Though he lifts one shoulder as if to brush off his commanding officer's comfort, Sideswipe does nothing otherwise. Optimus decides that the best thing is to let him have a sulk.

"By the time the ship ran out of fuel," Harvester says, optics once again scanning the group, "the Quadbots had begun cannibalizing each other, leeching energon out of the tanks of their fellows. As starved and enervated as they were, many of them fought going down into a stasis lock, simply because of what they feared may befall them while they were offline. Mechs and femmes began pulling panels off of the walls of the ship and crawling into the ventilation systems so that they might hide themselves from the others. These were all friends and family—closer, even. They had shared a bond through hardship and battle, yet no one trusted anyone else. I believe that you, Autobots, know a little of being brothers in arms. Can you imagine caring so deeply about the mech at your side that you would lay down your life for him while simultaneously not trusting him?"

Optimus' processor reels and he feels spark-sick. He tries to envision being so hungry that he would suck the energon out of a dead comrade's tanks—tries to imagine one of his men offlining him so that they might live a little bit longer off of his fuel. The very thought is horrifying but he can tell from the sidelong looks the Autobots are giving one another and the uncomfortable way that they're retracting their fields, he isn't the only mech in the room considering it. The idea isn't far from anyone's processors.

"The ship's momentum kept it moving even after its engines had ceased working," Harvester is saying. "It spiraled through space for millennia before it was caught in the gravitational pull of a planet it was passing and dragged down onto its surface. By that point, the population of the Quadbots on board had been decimated—out of the thousand mechs and femmes that had been put on the ship, there were only a hundred or so that survived the crash and made it out onto the planet to begin a search for energon."

Harvester shunts a deep, hard breath through his vents and finally looks back at Optimus, locking optics with him. "From those final hundred Quadbots, the Harvesters were created."

The Prime's processor is ticking and humming, trying to shuffle this new knowledge into place with the old files he has up on his HUD. Across the circle, Mirage's field is rife with curiosity. "So they found an energon source on the planet and formed their own society there," he attempts to clarify. "The Harvesters that you take your name from are actually a race of Quadbots descended from those survivors, _sì_?"

"Though it is possible for Harvesters to reproduce, as a general rule we do not. No, all of the Harvesters—myself included—were born on Cybertron."

There's a bewildered pulse that travels through all of the Autobots' fields but it's Lennox that actually asks the question on all of their processors. "How is that possible?"

"Because, Colonel William Lennox, I was on that ship."

* * *

Sam's breath whooshes right out of him. All around him, the Autobots have gone deathly still, the static charge that usually surrounds them after a battle suddenly invading the atmosphere of the MedBay. He swallows around the metallic taste it leaves in the back of his throat. "What?"

Harvester looks down at him, eyes dimmed to a dull green. "I was one of those thousand Quadbots that the original Primes packed onto that ship. I took energon off of my dead friends and hid within the walls for thousands of years to save myself. And when that ship crash-landed on a deserted planet, I fell in with Panzor and his sparkmate in order to survive."

"How the hell—?" Sam shakes his head. "No, that's imposs—okay, maybe not _impossible_ but it's certainly improbable. You can't expect us to believe that you are—God, what?—_billions_ of years old. I mean, I know that Jetfire and The Fallen had survived for that long but with them you could tell! You're not—_Ratchet!_" he cries abruptly, rounding on the green Autobot. "How old can he be, really?"

The medic, he's pleased to see, looks extremely skeptical. "I cannot tell with one-hundred percent certainty because of the placement of the blackout code, but I would estimate that he's not that much older than Bumblebee. At the most he's Sideswipe's age."

"Thank you, Ratchet," Harvester says flatly but with apparent sincerity. "It is pleasing to realize how well this body is holding up after all this time."

As Sam is opening his mouth to ask more questions, there is a sudden _thwang_ of metal against cement and the floor of the MedBay trembles. When he looks over his shoulder, Sam sees that Optimus is now standing. Even putting all of his weight on his right leg and leaning heavily on the berth he's just vacated, he still emits a presence of authority and power. "How?" he growls out, his eyes bright.

"You can't actually _believe_ him, can you Optimus?" Sam asks incredulously. "I mean, that's—that's insane!"

The Prime gives no indication that he's heard Sam, just stares heatedly at the Quadbot as he waits for an answer.

"There is no viable explanation for what happened on that planet, Optimus Prime," Harvester admits slowly. "I witnessed the event that gave birth to our species myself and even my processor cannot make helms or tails of it. All that I can say is that one Quadbot made a desperate choice and, because of that, the Harvesters were created."

Optimus narrows his eyes. "And what choice was that?"

Instead of an answer, there's a sudden _click_ and the sound of pistons and cogs whirling; the seam running down Harvester's prow-shaped chest splits apart and the two plates separate and fold back against his sides. As the cavity within is revealed and the smell of the spark chamber gel hits him, Sam wrinkles his nose. Having just been locked up inside that chest mere hours beforehand, he can easily recall the terror and claustrophobia he'd felt at having his knees crammed up against his chest and being unable to move his arms or head—being unable to see or hear or breathe properly.

He's in the middle of this vivid sense memory when he realizes that all of the Autobots have gone unnaturally quiet; the humming of fans and clicking that he usually associates with them even when they're deep in recharge has ceased completely. Looking around the circle at the five silent mechs, he asks uneasily, "What's going on?"

Bumblebee, who's been relatively silent up until this point, gives a low whine and answers him with his radio: "_No heart. All hollow._"

"What?"

"He doesn't have a spark, Sam," Sideswipe says breathlessly. "He doesn't have a fragging _spark_."

Sam feels as every muscle in his face slackens in disbelief. "No spark? But th-that . . . that's . . ."

Ratchet steps forward, eyes focused on the empty space within the Quadbot's chest. He looks a mix of horrified and fascinated—Sam can only assume that the latter of those two emotions is the medic in him needing to see how something new and interesting works. "It's impossible is what it is."

"Hardly," Harvester says as his chest plates slide back into place with a hiss of air. "After all, Ratchet, if it was impossible then I would not be here. Am I incorrect?"

Ratchet says nothing.

"You are mistaken, however. I do have a spark. Of sorts. You cannot see it with your optics but I am quite certain that you can feel it in my field: it is called a—" For a second, Harvester's words degenerate into the digitized clicking that Sam associates with Cybertronian before he transfers back into English. "—otherwise known as a void spark. It is what separates Harvesters from other mechs and femmes."

Optimus has straightened to his full height by this point. "A void spark? I have never heard of such a thing."

"That does not surprise me, Optimus Prime. Even with the knowledge that you inherited from the Matrix, it was unlikely that you would know anything about it. After all, the—" More Cybertronian. "—is a spark that is found only within the chests of Harvesters. If you had not heard of us before this point in time, then you would not have heard of the voidspark."

"And exactly how is it different from our sparks?" asks Dino.

"Because it functions by drawing in our unique energy source. Harvesters do not feed on everyday energon—this is the reason, Colonel William Lennox, that your companion nearly missed my signature on your energon detectors. Most Harvesters would not have been picked up at all but I need energon in order for my gular turbine to function." He suddenly looks over at Sideswipe as if he has just remembered something. "And in answer to your earlier question, Sideswipe: my tanks are currently at two-point-eighty-three percent."

Even with the knowledge he's just received, that number startles Sam by how unbelievably low it is. Most of the Autobots get cranky and start dragging their feet whenever their tanks are at seventy percent capacity; he has no idea if they'd even still be able to function at ten percent, let alone two-point-eighty-three.

"So what do Harvesters eat if not energon?" he asks.

"We do feed on a type of energon, Samuel Witwicky—a substance known as rarified energon."

Though it means absolutely nothing to Sam, the reaction that this simple statement gets from the Autobots is incredible: they explode away from the Quadbot with the scream of air brakes and grinding metal, simultaneously powering on their weapons systems and taking aim at him. In the commotion, Sam suddenly feels himself lifted right off his feet. He doesn't even have time to scream before Bumblebee has him tucked into the crook of one arm, the other pointing its cannon straight at Harvester. Sideswipe has also picked up Lennox and is shielding the man with his own body.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" the colonel is shouting from where he's crushed up against Sideswipe's chest. "What the hell's going on?"

Heedless of his newly-repaired leg, Optimus has surged away from the berth and right into Harvester's personal space. His energon sword blazes out of his left forearm and hovers near the Quadbot's throat. "What is your source?" Optimus bellows into Harvester's face. "Where do you get the rarified energon from?"

Harvester remains where he's sitting, looking perfectly unconcerned about the huge Autobot towering over him or the four cannons trained on him. "If we are desperate enough we will deconstruct protoforms but generally our preference is sparks—"

He doesn't get any further than that. Optimus grabs him around his neck and slams him backwards into the wall of the MedBay, which buckles beneath the force of the blow. His blade presses down on Harvester's throat, causing the plates and neural wires there to spark and smoke acridly.

"Have you killed Autobots?"

The dragon's head has twisted to one side so that he's facing in Sam's direction. His eyes are orbs of witches' fire and his sharp teeth are bared in a snarl but he's keeping his arms hanging limply at his sides. He doesn't look at Optimus. He says nothing.

"Answer me, Quadbot!"

"Just cut his head off, Optimus," Sideswipe says lowly. When Sam looks over at him, he sees that the silver mech's frame is quivering ever so slightly, rattling. That terrifies Sam more than anything. For Sideswipe, of all mechs, to be afraid of something, Sam knows that it has to be extraordinarily bad. "Kill him."

"Hey! Nobody is gonna kill anybody! Would someone please just tell me what in God's name is going on?" Lennox pleads.

"Yeah. Yeah, Optimus," Sam jumps in. "Put the sword away. Put it away and just talk to us. 'Bee? 'Bee, tell him to put the sword down."

The Autobots all ignore the two humans—their sole focus is on the black mech that Optimus currently has shoved into an indentation in the wall. When Lennox ultimately gets an answer to his question, it's from Harvester.

"They believe, Colonel William Lennox, that I am here to kill them and eat their sparks. Under normal circumstances they would be quite correct; however, killing the Autobots would negate my effort of coming to them for help. They seem to have forgotten that. Besides," he says, finally cutting his eyes across to Optimus, "if I had truly wanted to kill you, I would have done so by now."

Optimus just narrows his eyes. "You haven't answered my question: _Have you killed Autobots_?"

"Do not attempt to be obtuse, Optimus Prime—it does not become you. Of course I have. I have killed Autobots, Decepticons, and other Harvesters; I have killed the small, the young, the old, the sick, the strong, and the weak; I have killed Bipedals and I have killed Quadbots. I do not discriminate, nor would any intelligent Harvester. A spark is a spark and every transformer that dies by my claws and dente is another one- or two- or three-hundred years that I can live."

The honesty is brutal. While Sam is horrified by what's being said, he can't help but be a little impressed that Harvester would have the balls to tell Optimus something like that when the Autobot has an energon blade digging into his throat. He can hear the Prime's fans buzzing erratically and there's the creaking of metal as he tightens his hold on Harvester's neck. Optimus growls out, "You are disgusting. You are . . . evil."

"_No. I am morally ambiguous._"

Sam jolts in Bumblebee's arms. The voice that has just come out of Harvester's mouth in response to Optimus' statement is deep, harsh, cold, and very much _not_ Harvester's. It hits Sam on a visceral level.

Optimus jerks away from the Quadbot so forcefully that he winds up tripping backwards over his freshly-welded leg and hitting the MedBay floor with a crash. Ratchet is at his side in an instant, gun pointed straight at the dragon's face, but Sam can tell that he's been rattled nearly as badly as Optimus has. Harvester, now left with nothing holding him up against the wall, drops down onto all fours again and stares blankly at the two Autobots.

"What the Pit was that?" Ratchet growls. "That sounded just like—"

"Shockwave," Optimus finishes for him. "How is that possible?"

Sam, by this point, is not only nervous but also utterly confused. He's read about Shockwave in the various reports that NEST soldiers and the Autobots have given to the JCS: one of Megatron's top generals and, according to the Autobots he's asked, a real nasty piece of work. He had been killed in Chicago by a combined effort of NEST and Optimus, if the reports are to be trusted.

Harvester continues to look at them, his head slightly cocked to one side. His answer to Optimus's question, when it finally comes, is simply, "Because I consumed his spark."

Dino narrows his eyes fractionally. "But it was Optimus that killed him."

"Yes, but I do not have to kill a mech or femme in order to gain access to their spark. I must merely be in the vicinity."

Optimus grits his teeth and begins to leverage himself off the floor with Ratchet's help. He doesn't speak until he's gone through the awkward process of getting both of his long legs beneath him and is standing once again. "That still does not explain how you spoke in his voice."

"It is not so difficult to comprehend. When a spark is taken, it still holds all of the emotional knowledge from the transformer that it once belonged to—if a Harvester consumes that spark, we gain access to vapors of that knowledge. Generally what we receive are strong feelings or thoughts centered around the time of the mech's death; occasionally, however, snatches of very memorable conversations come through and we are able to actualize them. What you are hearing comes straight from my processor and is emitted through my radio. If I am not mistaken, Optimus Prime, you and this Shockwave have had a similar exchange in the past, yes?"

Sam watches Optimus as he retracts the energon blade back into his forearm. His whole form has a slight tremor running through it, but Sam doesn't know whether it's anger, fear, or just weariness and lack of energon. Either way, his voice comes out as a low grumble when he states, "Shockwave was once a top-rate scientist under my supervision. His ethics were, in my optics, less than ideal. The two of us argued about numerous things right up until the day that he fell in with Megatron. That conversation that you are hearing from his spark was one that we had whenever I realized just how far gone he actually was. I told him that he was evil and he said—"

"_No. I am morally ambiguous_," Harvester repeats in the Decepticon's voice. It's less shocking the second time around, but Sam can still see Optimus recoil.

"Yes. Exactly."

The Quadbot's eyes dim slightly, his voice regaining its natural warmth and lowering in what Sam can only guess might be sympathy. "You had hope for him. I can certainly see why you would: he did have an absolutely brilliant processor. But he _was_ evil, Optimus Prime. Do not doubt that. I felt it whenever I took his spark and I can still feel it now."

Optimus just stares at him.

"However, we are getting slightly away from the point, Autobots." Harvester raises his voice and glances around at the others. "If you will remember, I did come to you for your assistance in something. Would you like to hear of the matter or would you prefer to simply stand about all night pointing your guns at me?"

"We could just kill you," Dino says levelly. The blades on his forearms gleam in the harsh MedBay lights. Pressed up against Bumblebee's chassis, Sam can feel the yellow mech rumble quietly in agreement.

"You could certainly try, Dino-Just-Dino. I would escape. Or I would slaughter you." Looking around the room at the five highly-agitated Autobots, Sam highly doubts this. "Then the Earth would, more than likely, be destroyed in your absence."

Sideswipe bridles up, his armor flaring. "You dare threaten this planet in our presence?" he spits.

"Do pay attention, Sideswipe—I threatened _you_. The Earth and its population is in no danger from me, I assure you. I have no real concern for the humans, malicious or otherwise. But if you are killed, then this planet will have no defense against what is coming."

Although Sam is pretty sure that he already knows the answer, he has to ask, "And what _is_ coming?"

"Harvesters. They have been trickling down ever since the Autobots and the Decepticons arrived on this planet, but I have begun to notice an increase in their rate over the past year. And, even more alarming, I can feel more of them coming. Many more."

"How—_ugh!_" Sam lets out an aggravated huff, suddenly sick of holding what feels like a very important conversation while tucked into the crook of Bumblebee's arm like an infant. "Put me down, would you, 'Bee?"

His Guardian whines but does as he's asked, setting Sam on the ground at his feet; Sideswipe takes his cue from Bumblebee and winds up letting Lennox drop to the floor as well. The colonel looks extremely relieved.

Once he's straightened out his shirt, Sam resumes asking his question to the black Quadbot. "How many more Harvesters are coming?"

"Enough to cause me worry, Samuel Witwicky. Otherwise, I certainly would not be here."

"I tell you what—just for the hell of it, you mind taking a wild guess at an _actual_ number for me?"

Harvester huffs out a smoky breath. "The last time that I was in the presence of any substantial number of Harvesters, I could sense several hundred; however, that was many thousands of years ago. The number may have increased or decreased since then."

_Several hundred_ . . . _may have increased_ . . .

Sam looks at the five Autobots standing around him and thinks about how absolutely screwed they are if that's the case. Even with Wheelie and Brains; the Wreckers currently stationed in Florida; Highbrow and Tomahawk out at Diego Garcia; Gears over in Nevada; and the four incoming Autobots, they will still be vastly outnumbered. He hears a muted, "Shit," from Lennox and can only assume that he's thinking along the same lines.

Sideswipe grunts and finally holsters his pistol. "We've dealt with those odds before."

"Not against Harvesters," the black mech says simply. "Which brings me to the second part of why I am here. As I told Director of National Intelligence Charlotte Mearing earlier this evening, I made a conscious choice to come to the Autobots over the Decepticons. I gave her a list of reasons why I had chosen you, but there was one that I neglected to mention and it is this: I came to you, Autobots, because I knew that you would not waste or misuse the gifts that I am going to bestow on you."

Sam squints one eye nearly shut and puts his hands on his hips. "Gifts? Like 'Merry Christmas!' or 'Happy Hanukkah!' types of gifts?"

Harvester's brows lower and he appears to run those phrases through his processor before giving Sam a shrug that the young man can only interpret as, _If you like, Samuel Witwicky_. "The first thing that I am granting you is knowledge: you will get a detailed history of our race; weapons and defenses; and stratagems that Harvesters like to employ while fighting. As I am sure you are undoubtedly aware, not many of my kind would be willing to offer up tips to their food source on how to defeat them—I suggest that you pay attention and use the information that I give you wisely and resourcefully."

Dino steps forward. "You said that was the first part of your gift. What would be the second?"

One side of Harvester's mouth pulls up in a slight grin. "A desperately-needed increase in your numbers," he says and Sam can't help but be substantially irritated at the mech's nerve.

"So, let me get this straight," he says loudly, holding up one hand for attention. "You're telling us that hundreds of blood-thirsty Quadbots are gonna be dumped down on our heads, hunting for the hearts of my friends, and the only thing you have to bring to the table is a bit of insider info and one fighter? That's just great. No reason to worry at all, then." He hears Bumblebee titter and glances up to see pleased blue eyes looking down at him.

When Sam looks back at Harvester, he sees that the smirk has definitely fled the dragon mech's face. He is obviously much less amused than 'Bee. "You listen but you do not hear me, Samuel Witwicky," he says shortly. "I am not offering you a warrior."

There is suddenly a loud _click_ and a hiss of air as several interlocking panels running down Harvester's chassis unlock and fold back like a crustacean's legs. The black metal inside slowly irises away to reveal a sac sitting just beneath his chest cavity: it's only slightly bigger than one of Carly's yoga balls and is made up of what looks like silver mesh. As Sam watches, it appears to pulsate with blue and white light. He stares at the oddly beautiful sight for a short eternity and then raises his head to meet Harvester's bright eyes.

"I am offering you six."

* * *

_Huh? What's Harvester talking about? I'd love to hear your theories!_

_Anyway, as you can see, I've decided to start updating on Saturdays. It's more convenient for me and I'm sure it's more convenient for y'all, which is what I want. :) It'll still be a bi-monthly thing, though. This chapter also comes with a warning: things are starting to get a little hairy IRL. I've just gotten a new, second job as a painting teacher; I'm trying to get my online jewelry company up and running; AND I'm currently in the process of purchasing a bead store. But, any free second that I get is devoted to this story. :) Just expect updates to get more sporadic in about a month._

_Thanks for reading!_


	5. We Go Back, We Go Forth

**Chapter 5: We Go Back, We Go Forth**

At nearly three in the morning, headquarters has gone dark and quiet. The technicians and engineers that have been scuttling about in the Conference Bay all afternoon have finally retreated to the residential areas or have gone home to their families. Most of the transformers have also vacated the premises: Dino and Sideswipe are out on patrol and Bumblebee has gone home with Sam for the night. Harvester has disappeared off to Primus-knows-where.

Per Ratchet's strict orders, Optimus is stretched out on a berth in the MedBay. He's been trying for the past few groons to catch some recharge, but the combination of aching struts and a severely overwrought processor is making the task unquestionably difficult. Forcing a heavy sigh through his intakes, Optimus shifts on the berth; he's trying to draw his right leg up in an effort to take some pressure off his hips, but he doesn't make it very far before he is immediately bombarded with medical glyphs outlined in Ratchet's annoyed field.

"Trying to escape?" comes the CMO's voice from across the MedBay.

Optimus puffs out a breath. "Of course not. I wouldn't make it very far on this leg." He taps his digits across his left thigh with a series of soft _pings_. "I was just stretching."

"No stretching allowed," Ratchet huffs as he makes his way across the MedBay to where Optimus is laid out. From what Prime can see in the dim lights of the MedBay, the medic's no-nonsense look is firmly in place. "Doctor's orders. You put enough strain on that injury earlier this evening. So get comfortable—I don't want you putting any pressure on it until Friday at the earliest."

The Prime has to fight off an aggravated sigh directed towards the medic as he checks his chronometer: it's Wednesday 2:06:38. "I think that might be a little excessive, don't you? Considering the circumstances."

"You're not allowed to think, either. Not until Friday. Any business you need to conduct, you can do it from that berth, or not at all. If you have a problem with that, then I'll just put your aft into stasis until—"

"Ratchet." The Autobot leader is sure to keep his field to himself, but the quiet authority in his voice is enough to make the bright green mech stop for the moment; Optimus doesn't hold out much hope that it will keep him at bay for long, though. "I need to talk this out with someone. I value your opinion and I'd like your perspective on it, if you don't mind."

Ratchet stares at him for a breem, then ducks his helm and vents a hard sigh. He's standing right next to Optimus' berth with both hands on his hips; his field is tattered and full of static. He's exhausted, Primus knows, but next to Prowl, he's the best mech for Optimus to bounce ideas off of—and they don't have time to wait for their tactician to arrive. When Ratchet finally speaks, he sounds resigned. "All right."

Optimus waits for him to hoist himself up onto the adjoining berth before he begins. He folds his hands over his chest, linking his digits together. "So, what do you think?"

"About Harvester?" Ratchet grunts as he gets comfortable.

Optimus' left shoulder twitches in a shrug and a notification for a low-grade clog in one of his neural lines pings up on his HUD. He takes a moment to correct the issue before answering. "About all of it. About what he claims that he can do."

"Well, medically speaking, it seems impossible," Ratchet answers simply. Optimus hums a noncommittal noise through his vents. He suddenly realizes that he doesn't know whether he should feel relieved or disheartened by that assessment. Ratchet must be able to detect the conflicting emotions in his field because he clears his intakes and continues, "I guess the question that we need to ask ourselves is not if we think he can do it, but if we believe anything he's telling us, at all."

"And do you?" Optimus asks, curious. He had been so busy trying not to fall to pieces in the later part of the discussion that he hadn't been able to get a good read on Ratchet's thoughts, despite him taking over the meeting at one point.

The medic shrugs, gears clicking and whirling. "Parts of it. I know he's not telling us everything, that's for certain. But I believe most of it, despite how outrageous it sounds." He looks over at Optimus, his optics bright in the dim light of the MedBay. "And you, Prime?"

After a breem of thought, Optimus agrees. "I think that you're correct. He's not telling us the whole story."

"He doesn't trust us yet. Unsurprising, considering what he is and what he claims he can do. I wouldn't trust us, either." Ratchet is quiet for a nanoklik, then asks, "Do you trust him?"

Optimus chuffs. "Not in the least." He can see Ratchet's grim smile in the blue light from his optics and his field has a touch of approval to it, as though that's the wisest thing that Optimus has said all day. All things considered, it probably is.

The two mechs say nothing to one another for a long while. Optimus is contemplating the pros and cons of this plan that Harvester has concocted, weighing each of them carefully in his processor, when Ratchet seems to roust himself from his own thoughts. He asks quietly, "Do you believe him?"

"I—" The Prime taps one digit against his chest plate, considering. "I do not trust him," he repeats and Ratchet shakes his helm.

"Which is not the same thing, Optimus. I asked you if you _believe_ him."

Optimus glances at his CMO, then shutters his optics and lets his processor drift back a few groons. Harvester's voice is suddenly resonating through his audials as though the mech is sitting on the berth next to him instead of Ratchet, a deep growl conveying one incredible claim:

"_I am offering you six."_

* * *

Lennox is talking, asking confused, pertinent questions. Optimus can hear Harvester responding in his gratingly calm voice; can feel a cacophony of emotions battering against his processor as every Autobot in the room flares out their fields simultaneously. Their confusion, fear, and hope thrum through the room and weave through his field until it's all he can do not to just collapse from a total overload of sensation.

And all the while, Optimus keeps his optics focused on the small, anomalous sac that Harvester has just revealed to them in his chest cavity.

"What is that thing?" Lennox asks, pointing at it.

_I am not offering you a warrior, _the dragon's voice echoes through Optimus' processor.

Harvester looks from the colonel to the sac and gently prods it with one clawed digit. Its surface ripples like oil over water before settling once again. "This is my rarified energon containment unit—or RECU, if you prefer," the mech explains. "It holds an organic pre-digestive liquid in which sparks are kept until I am ready to assimilate them. When that time comes, they move up from the RECU into my voidspark and I am granted a vast store of energy."

_I am not offering you a warrior._

Next to Lennox, Sam is leaning forward to get a better look. "Exactly how many sparks have you got in there right now?" the young man asks warily.

There are some grinding noises and a series of snaps as the metal panels used to cover Harvester's RECU fold back into place, obscuring the bag from view. Optimus' optics linger there for a microbreem, then jump up to the dragon's face as he answers. "I am currently at forty-seven sparks, most of which are Decepticons."

"Forty-seven?" Sam asks, sounding awed and disgusted all at the same time. "You have nearly _fifty_ sparks in that thing?"

Lennox, however, voices a more significant question: "_Most_ are Decepticons?" Something suddenly clicks and Optimus' breath catches in his intakes, a harsh shudder that has Ratchet looking over at him.

_I am not offering you a warrior._

"Most," answers Harvester simply.

_I am offering you six._

Optimus shifts abruptly on his peds, straightens, and Harvester's luminescent eyes snap to him. They stand facing each other across a gap built, not out of kleps or hics, but out of millennia of hatred and pain and guilt and fighting, two warriors just trying to find some sort of solid ground to hold onto. Then Harvester smirks and the gap inevitably widens.

He narrows his optics at the black mech. "Who?"

Harvester snorts, forcing hot air out through the vents running along his snout. The smile has faded, leaving him blank-faced once again. "I was wondering when you would begin to ask the right questions, Optimus Prime. That is, after all, the most important thing, is it not?" The Autobot leader doesn't bother answering the question. He clenches his fists, ignoring the red glyphs that spring up across his HUD.

"_Who?_"

The Quadbot stares at him for a breem and then shutters his optics, a look of concentration crossing his face. After a nanoklik of silence, he opens his mouth and another mech's voice comes pouring out past his curved dente.

Through the connection between their fields, Optimus can feel the Autobots jolt in surprise. The words are a garbled, harsh slang and, given the perfect diction that they have become used to the mech using over the past several groons, the words sound extremely odd coming out of Harvester's mouth. That, however, is not Optimus' main concern, nor is it any of the other mechs'—it is the voice itself:

"_You wanna piece of me? You wanna piece—?_"

Harvester opens his optics and looks around expectantly, but it's as though an EMP burst has just wiped out their vocal processors; even the two humans have been stunned into silence. Finally, Sideswipe's engine churns once and he manages to stutter out, "That . . . Was that _Jazz_?"

* * *

"I don't know what to believe anymore."

Ratchet lifts his helm at the sound of his commanding officer's voice. For a few breems there, Optimus had dropped off into his own world, one from which Ratchet had been hesitant to wake him. The strut in his left thigh is going to take a long, painful time to set itself to rights once again and the more time Optimus is immobile and unconscious, Ratchet knows, the easier it will be on everyone involved. The best thing for him to do would be to put the Prime into stasis. At any other time, he wouldn't even have to run it through his processor twice, but with Harvester's sudden involvement in the future of their race, the medic knows that their leader needs all the time he can get to think things through.

"You think that he's lying?" Ratchet asks. He himself isn't certain that, in this case, Harvester's withholding of information is necessarily the same thing as not telling them the truth. However, he doesn't want to color Optimus' perception of the situation, so he's careful to keep any sort of inflection out of the question.

Optimus' tone is hollow when he answers, his field muddied with a sudden grief. "I think that they're dead."

"Yes, well, so were you," Ratchet reminds him gently.

"No, I wasn't. Not really."

"You were as good as."

"It's not the same thing, Ratchet, and you know it. They are _gone_."

The Prime sounds so frustrated and resigned that Ratchet can't help cringing just the slightest bit. After all, this is unknown territory for all of them—they have no knowledge on these incoming mechs other than what Harvester has told them. Ratchet can certainly understand his leader's hesitance to accept help to a relatively unknown problem, especially when the offered solution is so incredibly taboo.

* * *

"Answer the question, Quadbot: _was that Jazz?_" Sideswipe bellows. The blades on his arms are fully extended and his peds are planted in a defensive stance, as though the weight of Harvester's answer will be enough to knock him clean over. Ratchet can almost see the black tendrils of hate creeping into the Warrior's red field and pings an urgent message to Optimus to _:Fragging pay attention to your soldier, Prime.:_

_:I've got it.:_ he transmits back testily.

Ratchet can feel Optimus' blue-white field rush past him, pulsing with commander glyphs, just as Harvester looks over at Sideswipe placidly and states, "Aye."

"You," the silver mech growls, "_ate_ our friend?"

Bumblebee and Dino's fields suddenly pulse bright around them, and Ratchet—through his own morbid shock—crashes his against theirs in a wave of higher-ranking glyphs. _:Don't!:_ he shouts down a line at the two of them. _:Or I'll manually override your sorry afts and leave you drooling on the floor.:_

_:Are you deaf?: _Bumblebee raves even as he backs down. _:He _ate_ Jazz's _spark_!:_

_:I know.:_ Ratchet tells him in the calmest voice he can manage. _:Just wait.:_

He glances over at Optimus, who is shaking with the effort of keeping Sideswipe from tearing Harvester limb from limb, then at the Quadbot himself. The panels along his shoulders and back have flared out, and his dente are bared, but beyond that, Ratchet can see his sooty field twisting around him like a pyroclastic cloud. He's unnerved, the medic realizes. "I have already stated that I have consumed the sparks of Autobots, have I not?" he snarls condescendingly. "What is so hard to comprehend about my having your Saboteur's, Sideswipe?"

At this point, Sideswipe is physically straining against Optimus' glyphs. He bears his full weight forward, dente gritted together. "Why, you slag-faced little—"

"Sideswipe!" Optimus roars. Ratchet can see his tenuous grasp on the Warrior splintering and makes a quick decision: he steps forward, wielding his field like a battering ram, and uses his superior medical glyphs to override Sideswipe's programming. The Corvet shudders, goes deathly still, and then collapses into a heap at Harvester's feet.

Ratchet huffs from the effort and, knowing that Sideswipe can still hear him, says quite clearly, "There'll be no fighting in my MedBay if I have anything to say about it." He cuts his optics across to Dino and 'Bee. "Got it?"

They both nod hurriedly.

He glances at Harvester, who is staring down at Sideswipe's prone form with a look on his face that clearly says he has no idea what has just happened. Ratchet takes advantage of his shock to check on Optimus, his concern for his patient momentarily overriding any desire he has to question the Quadbot. The Prime is leaning back against his berth, venting heavily.

Ratchet performs a quick scan on the mech's systems and checks the read-outs that come scrolling down his HUD. No damage done, he's thankful to see. He makes Optimus sit down on the berth anyway, which the Autobot leader has no exceptions to—he barely keeps himself from collapsing sideways when he sits, his bright blue field trembling around his frame.

_:Rest.:_ Ratchet commands.

_:You don't have to tell me twice.:_ Even through the transmission, he sounds as though he's panting.

The medic nods at him and turns back to the small group. Sam and Lennox are gathered around Sideswipe, trying to figure out what happened. Ratchet knows that humans do not have fields in the same way that the transformers do, but he has become adept at reading their body language. Worry, tension, and guilt are coming from Sam and anger is coming off of Lennox in roiling waves, directed towards Harvester.

He sighs. "Sideswipe, I am going to let you stay down there and cool off. Learn to control your temper better."

The silver mech cannot, Ratchet knows, communicate with either his vocal processors or through his radio frequencies while he's in override; at the moment, however, his field is saying a big enough _Frag you_ that Ratchet feels that his decision is well justified. He grumps and turns on Harvester.

"Jazz died over six Earth cycles ago," he says, cutting right to the chase. "How can you have his spark?"

Harvester's green optics jump to Sideswipe for a fraction of an astrosecond, then back to Ratchet. He clears his intakes. "After witnessing your battle in Mission City, I realized that my feeding grounds would not long be safe from other Harvesters. I began to take preventative measures in the nearly inevitable event of their incursion. Keeping your Jazz's spark was merely the first step."

Ratchet hears a groan of hot metal from behind him. "So you kept his spark as leverage so that we would help you?" Optimus asks.

"Think of it as looking out for my best interests," Harvester says flatly.

Ratchet narrows his optics dangerously. "How dare you?" he asks lowly. The sudden rush of disgust that he feels for the Quadbot is overwhelming.

There's a flash of dente, too vicious and sad to ever be called a smile, and Harvester snarls, "I am afraid that you will soon find, my dear medic, that _Look to thine own aft first_ is the motto by which all Harvesters live their lives."

And with that cruel statement, the MedBay descends into a tense silence. Ratchet is unsure how to proceed civilly and is considering simply reversing Sideswipe's override and letting him loose on the black mech, when Lennox pipes up. "You said you had six warriors. What's keeping Jazz's spark got to do with that?"

Harvester turns his helm to look at the colonel as he talks, finally breaking optic-contact with Ratchet. When he speaks, his voice is calm, his facial plates smoothed into apathy once again. "I have a theory in regards to sparks. They are energy, plain and simple, Colonel William Lennox, and energy can be neither created nor destroyed. It can only be transferred and used. As you know, I consume sparks and hold them within my RECU until a time comes when I am able to use them to power my systems. Now, I told you that most of the sparks I am carrying are Decepticons, yes?"

Lennox makes a small affirmative sound. Harvester nods once.

"Yes, and I can tell that because they feel a certain way in my RECU. They are slick and greasy and fight with the sparks of the Autobots that I have consumed. You believe that the spark of a transformer is comparable to a human heart, but in reality, Colonel William Lennox, transformers do not have hearts—they have _souls_." He looks up at Dino and Bumblebee, over at Optimus, and finally settles his optics on Ratchet. "And I can tell the difference between Jazz's spark and the spark of, let us say, Megatron because not only do those sparks hold onto feelings and snippets of memories . . . They hold on to your very souls; those sparks pull in your personalities, your psyches, your very _essences_ and wrap themselves in them like cloaks. A spark is also inherently aware of which body it is meant to be housed in and will only relinquish that body when it is no longer able to contain that spark.

"And so, it is my belief, Autobots, that if the spark of a dead transformer is reunited with that mech or femme's repaired body, with your Matrix of Leadership, they could be brought back from the Other Side."

Ratchet sways back on his peds. His processor is undoubtedly speeding along at break-neck speed, but it's as though everything in the room has suddenly been submerged in transmission fluid. He can't even tell where the edges of his own field are, let alone what any of the other 'Bots are doing with theirs. "You—" he tries and stops when his vocal processors squeal with static. He clears his intakes. "You claim that you can bring Jazz back to life?"

"No," Harvester says bluntly. It cuts through the haze clouding his audials and aligns his axis once again with a solid jolt. The emotion that Ratchet could feel clawing its way up into his chest cavity—what he recognizes now, idiotically, as hope—bursts like a aneurismatic neural line and drains back down, leaving behind a pain that he hasn't felt in several cycles.

He breathes out an, "Oh," and Harvester cocks his helm to one side like a dog might.

"As I stated once before: I am offering you _six_." And suddenly there hope is, rearing its stupid head once again.

Bumblebee moves forward quickly, shoulders tense but optics bright. "_Who else?_" he asks over his radio and, for the first time that Ratchet can remember him being in Harvester's presence, he sounds plaintive.

The dragon mech flits his optics over to 'Bee. It's only for a nanoklik, but Ratchet can see distrust all but oozing out of his dark field in that one glance. Harvester chuffs, then lowers his helm and shutters his optics, a mask of concentration forming over his face. Ratchet expects to hear another of their friends' voices, but the next words that Harvester speaks are his own. "There is an old soul. Fiercely intelligent, a bit wild, and loyal to a fault."

Ratchet feels Dino perk up through where their fields are mingling. "Que? You've got Que in there?"

Harvester squints his optics as though he's mulling it over, then nods his great horned helm once. There is a short bark of laughter from Dino, an excited sound that travels through all the mechs' fields like a crack of lightning. The corner of Harvester's mouth twitches. He then lowers his optics again. "There is a young one, too," he says. "Not a mechling, by any means, but younger than most of you. Very quiet and intense."

"That would be Jolt," Ratchet puts in, crossing his arms. "He was killed by Shockwave a few cycles back."

"Yes, I know. There are also two sparks—they are hovering so near to one other they appear to be as one. Two stars constantly eclipsing one another, both very brash and bright."

"The Twins," the whole MedBay choruses as one, Sam and Lennox included. Ratchet can't help but smile at the fact that half the mechs groan as they say it, their fields simultaneously aching with longing and preemptively annoyed. Harvester grins.

"They are quite a handful, I shall admit."

"So, Jazz, Jolt," Sam recaps, ticking them off on his fingers, "Que, Skids and Mudflap. That's five. Who's the last?"

For a split astrosecond, Harvester's optics flick over Ratchet's shoulder and the panels along his snout flare out as he draws in a huge breath. Ratchet doesn't have to even look at the Prime to know that he will be sitting at full attention, his field bright and still. After a nanoklik, Harvester glances back at the medic and shutters his optics. He seems to search for a time, and then opens his mouth and he says, "_I'm a soldier. I'm made for _war. _Your kind simply . . . are _not."

And Ratchet knew it would be him, but that doesn't stop the air from rushing out of his intakes at the sound of Ironhide's voice coming out of Harvester. "He was blasted apart by a rust cannon," he murmurs. "He took a direct shot to the chest."

"A spark is not bound by its vessel, Ratchet. It cannot be destroyed. His spark is fine." There's a pause and then Harvester grimaces. "More than fine, actually. It is particularly troublesome in that it is constantly fighting with those of the Decepticons in my RECU."

Ratchet huffs. "Sounds like Ironhide."

Harvester nods and, for a moment, everyone gathered in the MedBay is still and silent. Ratchet glances around at the Autobots' fields and sees the same thing he had felt moving within him not ten breems earlier: hope. Bumblebee's field is bright green and sparking excitedly; Dino's is a shimmering turquoise lanced through with streaks of silver, something Ratchet hasn't seen since Que was killed; even Sideswipe's has mellowed to an agreeable shade of deep burgundy. Optimus' field, Ratchet can see in his peripheral vision, is glowing like a supernova.

Harvester shunts a breath through the panels along his sides and clears his intakes. "In any case, Autobots, those are your six warriors. With your promise of help and with any small amount of luck, I will soon be returning them to you. Perhaps they will be of more use to you the second time around than they were the first."

* * *

Now, with Harvester out of Headquarters and the excitement from the younger mechs no longer lancing through their fields, Ratchet can sense that Optimus is slowly being overcome with doubt and foreboding. "They are gone," he repeats slowly. "And I don't . . ."

Ratchet waits patiently for him to finish and, when he remains silent, gives him a slight nudge with his field. Optimus twinges away and vents a sigh. "I don't know how to feel about it."

The CMO frowns to himself. He was never one for psychology—that was always better left to Inferno—but he thinks he may be able to talk Optimus through this. He's fairly sure he already knows what the Autobot leader's hold-up is, but he asks, "About what?"

"Pulling sparks at rest out of the Well of Sparks, only to put them back into bodies so that they can once again fight." The giant mech looks over at him and, even in the darkness, Ratchet can see the uneasiness he's feeling reflected in his optics. "They are at peace. Should we not leave them there?"

"If what Harvester says is true, then the sparks that he's carrying are not _in_ the Well of Sparks and never were. They are inside of him. And after he uses them up, they will vanish into nothing."

"Do you believe that?"

"I do not know what to believe anymore," Ratchet concedes after a moment, reusing one of Optimus' earlier sentiments. "What I do know is that every single one of those six mechs would—all puns aside—die for a chance to fight beside you once again. And I understand, honestly, I do. If we do this, we turn our backs on everything that we were ever taught about what comes after we deactivate; if we do this, we turn our backs on our very system of belief, but Optimus . . . we cannot let that rule our decision. The same way that we cannot think about what we stand to lose if they come back. After all, we've already mourned for them. Primus knows what we would do if we lost them all again."

Optimus twitches, retracting his field, and Ratchet knows that he's hit the bolt on the head. He understands Optimus' reticence. After all, if he was given six of his men—his friends—back, only to watch them uselessly die again, it would be like having all the air sucked out of his intakes. He isn't sure he'd be able to survive it.

"But we need them," Ratchet continues, and he knows that to be true, also. "For fight and for hope. Otherwise, by the end of this, we'll _all_ vanish into nothing."

Blue optics shutter and Ratchet feels a wash of frustration travel through Optimus' field. "We don't even know the process behind this plan that Harvester has concocted. We have no idea if bringing them back is going to cause our friends pain or if they'll even be the same whenever they return to us." Optimus opens his optics. "He has no vested interest in us, Ratchet. As far as I can tell, his only concern is his own protection. How can we trust that he has their best interests at spark?"

"We have to assume that he doesn't." Ratchet takes a moment to hop off of the berth he's perched on and stretch his shoulders, the gyroscopic joints there pulling and whining crankily as he moves. "I don't know all the answers, Prime, but I do know that none of us should be so terrified of what _might_ happen that we shouldn't try this."

"You sound so certain."

Ratchet shrugs. "I'm a medic. It's in my coding to be optimistic."

He feels the amusement through where their fields are touching, more than he sees Optimus' smile. "I wish I could force a reprogram on my own processor to make this an easier decision." Ratchet shakes his helm and lays a hand on Optimus' shoulder as he passes by.

"Get some recharge, Prime. You'll be able to think more clearly once you do." And with that, he leaves Optimus to his thoughts, vacating the MedBay in order to find a place to catch some recharge of his own.

* * *

With a hard sigh, Mearing peels her glasses off and tosses them onto her desk. A glance at her watch tells her that it's now nearly 3:30am. She arches her back, cracks her neck, and knows that she won't be going to bed anytime soon.

Her hour long phone conversation with Lennox about what had transpired between the new robot, Harvester, and the Autobots has lead to eight separate stacks of documents and reports on her desk that need to be filed ASAP; a phone call to the President and another to the Secretary of Defense; and one massive headache on Mearing's part. She's been working alongside the Autobots for over a year now and she still can't fathom how one robot can cause such a massive pile of paperwork.

Lennox had been, as far as Mearing can tell, excited about the developments. She can't fathom why—after all, she had watched Optimus bring Sentinel back to life and that hadn't ended so well for them. She's hesitant to be enthusiastic about anything that may wind up causing untold damage on portions of their country. So, even though she will need to write up reports on them, the six Autobots being brought back is not really her main concern.

The threat of these so-called 'Harvesters' encroaching on them is a far more pressing matter, in her opinion. And, as she knows next to nothing about their anatomy, their weapons systems, or when they will be arriving, to name a few, Mearing can do little more than wait for their newest member to be more forthcoming with information.

She pinches at the bridge of her nose. The President and Secretary of Defense had been even less pleased, it seems, with her lack of details on the subject. After hearing that these Harvesters were coming down to hunt the Autobots and Decepticons, The President had insisted on calling a meeting with the League of Nations at some point over the following days.

Mearing can only assume that they're going to vote on whether or not to kick the transformers off of the planet. At this point, she's not overly concerned about that either, considering the massive shit-storm doing so had gotten them into last time; not to mention that, even if the Autobots conceded and could find a way to leave the planet, the remaining Decepticons would still be a draw for these Harvesters.

She yawns, sticks her glasses back on, and writes herself a short note about contacting Witwicky to speak on the Autobots' behalf.

Aside from that, she's got the issues with the assault on Headquarters to work out. She scans through the preliminary reports of damages and missing items, finally concluding that—since nothing appears to have vanished off of the premises during the skirmish—it was most likely a simple blitz attack, meant to disorient them and probably to assassinate the Autobots' medic. A few signatures, and she pushes a small stack of reports away; Ana can file them when she returns at 6am. Now on to the damage reports.

Mearing sighs. She really should have more underlings to do this kind of stuff for her in times like these.

She slogs through the documents for nearly an hour, cross-referencing them with financial analyses and drowning herself in black coffee. She's almost halfway through the stack when she stumbles upon a three-page report on one of the damaged energon detectors; she reads it, signs it, and is placing it in the 'completed' pile, when she suddenly remembers something.

Lennox had mentioned something about a type of energon—rare or special, something to that effect—that the Harvesters apparently feed on. What was it . . .?

Mearing riffles through the neat stacks of paper covering her desktop, searching for the hand-written notes she'd taken on Lennox's verbal report only a few hours previously. She eventually finds it, half-hidden beneath her laptop; after knocking over a precariously-perched heap of manila folders and swearing loudly enough to wake the dead, she sits back, victorious, and scans her own handwriting.

"_Rarified_ energon," she mutters to herself and continues reading.

Lennox had spoken briefly of how Harvester had barely registered on the one working energon detector at HQ—Mearing had suggested that the fault lay in the detector itself, but the Colonel had insisted he hadn't shown up clearly because he had almost no energon in his tanks. "But he has other mech's sparks in his body," Mearing says aloud, staring at her notes, "and sparks are made out of rarified energon, which means that he has plenty of that. So, that means that . . ."

Their detectors aren't picking up rarified energon.

Mearing presses a hand against her eyes and keeps it there for a moment, trying not to let panic get its claws into her. There could be countless Harvesters already on the planet and they'd have no idea, because the energon detectors are useless against this new threat.

So now, aside from overseeing the Harvester that they currently have under asylum and gathering any information she can out of him, her first priority is to find some way to equip their energon detectors to sense this rarified energon—not only that, but it would be preferable if the detectors would able to distinguish between the two types of energon. But before that, she needs to figure out cloning, because there definitely needs to be two of her to handle this job.

She pauses suddenly, struck with an odd idea. She almost disregards it immediately, shakes it away like a fly buzzing about her head—she can't imagine working civilly with him for more than five seconds, but the idea that he might be able to help her out on this won't leave her alone. After all, there are few people on the planet who know more about the transformers than him.

Mearing struggles with her own good sense for several minutes before a combination of stress, lack of sleep, and too much caffeine have her reaching into the brown leather Terrida bag beneath her desk and pulling out her cell phone. She thumbs through her contacts for a second and, before she can talk herself out of it, dials.

It rings through for several beats. Mearing squints down at her wristwatch and is just about to give up on the call as a lost cause, when there's a click and a not-quite-awake German drawl answers, "Simmons' residence."

"Dutch," she says warmly. She doesn't know a whole lot about the man, but the little time she'd spent with him had left a positive impression on her. He was interesting, to say the least. "Sorry to wake you so early, but I find myself in need of your boss."

There's a slight pause before Dutch asks in a confused voice, "Director Mearing?" Knowing what she does about him, she can't say that she's surprised he remembers her by voice alone from one year previously. He continues speaking before she can answer him, his voice turning cordial. "Well, this is certainly a surprise. Pleasure to hear from you. And no, you didn't wake me—I was just about to go out on my morning run." Contrary to his statement, Mearing can hear shuffling and clinking, as though he's puttering about in the kitchen making breakfast. "You said that you needed to speak with Mr. Simmons?" he asks.

"Yes, Dutch. It's rather urgent; otherwise I wouldn't have called at such an ungodly hour. Do you mind waking him?"

He makes an aborted sound as though he very much minds, but winds up saying in a small voice, "Of course. Give me just a moment."

Mearing puts the cell on speakerphone and places it on her desk so that she can begin the arduous process of collecting the spilled contents of the folders she'd knocked over a moment ago. There are papers of every color scattered over her office floor, delightedly mingling with one another, much to her chagrin.

From her crouched position, she can hear the muffled sound of footfalls for a while, then a sharp knock. The pause that follows is long enough for her gather a handful of pink B-A reference forms, before Dutch knocks again, louder this time. There's a thunk and Dutch says something in German, presumably to himself. The third knock gets a verbal response: a shout that sounds a little like "Fwrut?" down the line but what Mearing decides is probably, "What?"

Dutch calls, "Director Mearing on the line for you." His voice is muted now, as though he's just pressed the phone against his chest to muffle the sounds. Mearing tucks a sheaf of redacted documents into one manila folder and pokes her head up to listen.

She can hear Simmons yell something else and then she hears Dutch again, more pronounced. "Director Mearing, sir."

There's a moment of silence on the other end of the line, followed by the sound of what Mearing can only assume is Simmons dramatically throwing his door open. "Well, why didn't you say so?" he asks, his voice clearer now.

"I did—" Dutch tries, indignant, but there's suddenly the sound of a scuffle, fussing from both parties, and then a door slamming.

"Charlotte, my love," Simmons croons down the line. He sounds ridiculously alert for having just, supposedly, been woken up. "What can I do for you on this very fine, very early morning?" Mearing narrows her eyes at her phone.

"Simmons, if you make me regret this," she says loudly, pulling no punches, "I will personally disembowel you, toss you into a federal prison with the general population and I will leave you there to rot. Got it?"

"Promises, promises," he sighs. Mearing rolls her eyes and stands up.

"Simmons, I'm hanging up in three . . . two . . ." She reaches out one hand to press the red 'End Call' button and Simmons responds as though he can see her doing it.

"All right, all right, I'll try," he says hurriedly. "I'll try not to annoy you. That's the best I can do under the circumstances."

"At this hour, I'll take that," Mearing concedes, withdrawing her hand. She takes a second to retrieve two of the folders she's corrected and return them to where they belong on her desk. Ana can pick up the rest when she gets in later. "But that disembowelment-and-prison threat is still in play and will remain so until this partnership has been disolved."

"You expect so much of me," Simmons comments distractedly. As Mearing reclaims her chair and takes the phone off of speaker, he clears his throat. "So, what has you calling me at—" A pause while he presumably checks the time. "—0500 hours on this crisp December morning? I assume that it isn't social."

"You assume correctly. There appears to have arisen a . . . situation with the Autobots."

"That thing on the golf course, yesterday?" he asks immediately, his voice sounding serious for the first time since he'd picked up the phone. "I thought that was just typical Decepticon activity—they okay?"

"All Autobots are accounted for," she assures him absentmindedly. "We lost two soldiers at HQ and Optimus took a pretty bad hit, but that's not really why I'm calling."

"So, what is?" Mearing frowns into the phone. Whenever she and Simmons had worked together back in Quantico, the agent had always operated with a level of curiosity and bravado that Mearing had considered dangerous, arrogant, and just the slightest bit attractive. She is reminded of that now by the tone in his voice.

Picking her notes up off of her desk, she leans back and gets comfortable for what she's sure will prove to be a long conversation. "What do you know about Harvesters, Quadbots, and rarified energon?" she asks him.

There's a pause and then Simmons says, "Everything, whaddaya want to know?" in a way that tells Mearing that he knows absolutely nothing.

She grins into her phone. "You may want to sit down for this."

* * *

Okay, I'm thrilled to finally be done with this chapter! It kept me held up for so long and I need to give a big thanks to my Ducktape for helping me out! The next chapter is being worked on but, as far as I can see, I won't be able to make the regularly-scheduled update with it. I can try, but I will always put the quality of the chapter above when it comes out. That's just the way I am. :)

For those wondering about Ironhide's quote: it comes from the IDW Transformers movie comic. It's what he tells Optimus after being captured by the Autobots on Cybertron (random trivia: Ironhide worked for Megatron for a long time); it's basically his audition on joining the Autobots. Random-but-true facts. ;)

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. I can't guarantee that I'll be able to answer them fully (I don't want to give away anything), but I can do my best. :3 Thanks for reading!


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